Christmas 2015 recap

I hope you like family pictures, because this post is full of them! Here are the highlights of our multiple Christmas celebrations:

The celebrations began with spending Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa Hromada and Aunt Karen. Damon was as tall as his biggest gift!

Damon still wasn’t too interested in opening the presents, though he was ready to play immediately with every new toy. He did like this bag a lot!

Avery was thrilled to get an RV/camper for her Barbie dolls. Here she is telling Grandma and Grandpa that she saw this exact same RV on a TV commercial!

A few years ago, my mom made pajamas for all of the kids in my extended family. At the time, Chris jokingly said that the adults deserved some PJs too. Well, he wasn’t joking. This year, he asked my mom to make matching PJs for the four of us. She happily complied, and here is the result – monogrammed flannel pajamas for the Clarks.

Avery’s piano teacher spent a lot of time working with her on Christmas songs. So Avery had a nice repertoire of about 15 Christmas carols. She was ready to give a concert for the family, but she insisted that Karen join her on the violin. They played beautifully together. Hopefully we can have this concert every year!

Don’t these four look great together?

Christmas morning is always spent at home, just the four of us. We open stockings and presents and then eat a delicious breakfast prepared by Chris.

We spend the rest of Christmas day with Mommaw and Poppaw Clark. More presents and more food equal another wonderful celebration!

We were so excited to be able to have a video chat with Casey and family in Japan. Even Damon enjoyed talking to his overseas cousins!

On the day after Christmas, we celebrated with the Rork family at our house. It’s a good opportunity to take lots of family pictures! Here is the next generation of the cousins.

And here’s Granny Rork with just a handful of her great-grandchildren.

When the Rorks get together, we always enjoy playing games. But we tend to play the same games. I wanted to find some new activities, so after searching online I found the Saran Wrap Ball Game. It begins with a huge ball of prizes wrapped in Saran Wrap. (Nearly all of the prizes I put in our ball came from the dollar store.) One person in the circle begins unwrapping the ball to get to the prizes. But the person to his right is rolling two dice, trying to roll a double. When this person rolls a double, the ball is passed to him and the dice are passed to the next person in the circle.

It’s a frenzy of ripping open the ball and cheering for the other person to roll a double. The kids really got into this game. Who am I kidding – the adults enjoyed it too, even Granny! Sometimes the doubles came quickly, and sometimes they didn’t. I think everyone walked away with at least one prize. I think we’ll have to try this game again!

After this was one final Christmas celebration, the Pevler family. It was so nice to spend some time with Aunt Patty, and I think she really enjoyed seeing Avery and Damon.

Cousin Emily couldn’t stop squeezing and loving on these two, and I know the feeling is mutual.

We got a great Clark picture too!

Christmastime seems to fly by so quickly. But it’s always great to spend such quality time with people you love!