We celebrate an early Christmas

Saturday, December 22:  These four kiddos and I celebrate an "early" Christmas every year. It's when we open up presents together over here at MY place instead of doing it Christmas morning over at THEIR place. There are many reasons for this, but the chief one is that I LOVE watching the children open their gifts, and most often their gifts involve some sort of assembly and small pieces, so it just works better to do that over here where there is more available space for such activity.

 With the older three, there are no surprises--nor have there been for years and years. It's just that it works better for us this way. The children know what the budget is and they assemble a gift list accordingly. Most often, this has involved the LEGO site where we order on-line weeks prior to Christmas to make sure our items are actually in stock and will be delivered by Christmas. It also leaves nothing up to "chance" as far as I am concerned (i.e. picking a gift they do not like, etc.). 

 With Kaity, however, it's all about surprise. She does not offer me a gift list. I have watched her intently ALL YEAR round and noticed what she likes and doesn't like to play with--what kinds of things keep her attention and interest her, etc. I could do this with the older three, but they are not as transparent anymore about their likes and dislikes, and I can't afford to get it wrong. Christopher picked out a FitBit (waterproof!) that was $2 short of his budget. I had no ideas FitBits had come that far down in price.

 Emma requested money this year--which was super hard for me because I love to pick out an actual tangible gift that can at least be wrapped and put under the tree. But Emma is 16, practically grown up, and I need to respect her wishes. So ... money it was.

 Kaity's main gift was a Playmobile "Wild Life Adventure" set. Super cool. If Emma hadn't been here, I would have been in a world of hurts trying to put this thing together. Emma is super good at assembly (and all kinds of other things), and this was not a problem for her to build. Whew.

 Kaity received a few tiny gifts as well: a little stuffed dalmatian dog, as well as a super soft stuffed tiny tiger that can be worn. Sadly, I had purchased this exact same tiger for her previously and never remembered it. Yikes. I must be old. However, Kaity did not seem disappointed by the duplicate at all. I also got her a finger puppet (horse) book which is what she is looking at below.

 Matthew had ordered LEGOS and he was gracious enough to let Christopher assemble one of the models. I'll show you the finished product in just a minute.

 While Emma was assembling the Wild Life Adventure set, Kaity and I were ORDERED out of her way (!!), so we retreated to the playroom to race cars and play with the toys back there.

 Below are the finished car models. Super nice building, boys!

 Kaity enjoyed looking at the cool Christmas card I received from Ruthanne and Terry.

 And then Emma was finished building this huge set and told us we could now play with it. Kaity was very pleased. Isn't it cool?

 I had no idea it was this large. It certainly will not be stored where I thought I was going to put it!

 I didn't get very complete pictures of the set, but it's essentially a treehouse out in the wild complete with snake, mama grizzly (with a mouth that opens and reveals her teeth) and baby bear, a very cool eagle, some birds, geese, the cutest owl ever ... lots and lots of play in this set.

 Kaity completely accepts that we are going to keep this set here at the Beach House. She knows that whenever she comes over (2x per week), it is here to play with. The small pieces will not get lost. It will not break, and we can have loads of fun playing together with it.

We also did the Christmas story together and the kiddos colored nice illustrations as I read from Luke and Matthew. Jesus gets terribly left out of Christmas with all of the glitter, presents, stress, etc. BUT He is all that really matters, isn't He? Gloria to God in the Highest! Thank you for coming into our world. Thank you for being our Savior and Lord, a truly righteous king and always fair ruler. We are blessed, SO blessed, that YOU ARE WITH US.