Its hard to believe that another Christmas and, indeed, another year has passed.  It is now the start of 2009.  I cannot believe it!  Our little girl grows bigger, stronger, and smarter every day.  She totally “got” Christmas this year and had a blast.  Now she wants every day to be Christmas!

We stuck to the same old tried and true traditions of years past.  We cut down our tree a little more than a week before the big day. 

Kirk and Carol came over this year to help decorate.  That was fun.  We had such picturesque snowy weather right up to Christmas Eve.  It rained, taking much of the snow with it.  The usual Lake Road drive to the Van Ee’s was less than picturesque with high winds and rain dampening the mood.. slightly.  Although, it is hard to dampen the mood when you have a cheerful three year old singing “We wish you a merry Christmas” (repeat 10 times followed by) “... and a Happy New Year!”  The

Van Ee Christmas Eve party was as fun as ever - good friends, food, and games.  M. fell asleep before we made it home - just a half hour before midnight.  Mom and Dad still had Christmas preparations to take care of.  Dad still had presents to wrap!

Christmas day started later than usual, M. didn’t get us up until 9:30.  She was so excited when she saw the full stockings, and loaded Christmas tree.  Even Mason was excited.  He helped himself to his presents under the tree early.  We made M. wait for Grandma and Grandpa to arrive.  Santa was good to us all this year.  M. got the cup cake maker she wanted and a million other things.  Abby got a remote car starter.  I got a cool GPS navigator.  The family got many Wii games.

The best part of Christmas for Abby and I was the vacation.  I had almost two weeks off to play all day with M, play Wii games, and just relax.  It was very nice.

See all the pictures and video clips on our Christmas 2008 flickr set.

New Years Eve was spent quietly at home.  We let M. stay up to see the ball drop.  The next day we had dinner with Kirk and Carol.