Christmas at our Zoo

We start our Christmas traditions on Christmas Eve, when we go to a candlelight service. After the service we take in the light show at both Marion and neighboring Gas city park while sipping hot cocoa (or coke if your Thomas he doesn't like cocoa, then again neither do I, so really Aiden and Courtney sip hot cocoa, while I sip eggnog and Thomas sips coke and Jack, well he is at work). When we get home we put out a cookie and some milk for Santa. Our Santa doesn't like icing on his cookies, and must have 2% milk, yes in our household even the Santa is food picky, but our kids are understanding due to their own pickyness!
Then we mix up a big batch of reindeer food. This year Santa forgot to sweep it up when he got home, um no wait a minute Santa's reindeer were not hungry by the time they got to our house yeah that's right!

In the morning we open presents right away. Now usually I beat the kids up and end up sitting with bright eye anticipation waiting for them to get up! But not this year. Nope this year they all got up at 4 a.m. on the nose.

Sorry for the serious face! She's my mini Mona Lisa!!! But I had to show you Courtney's favorite gifts earmuffs and muckluck slippers!!

The day continued with a 1 pm lunch of ham, homemade rolls, green beans and fried potatoes. Then we made our annual trip to the Whites for a few hours to allow the kids to share their Christmas finds with each other, and to allow us adults to stuff our faces some more and catch up. The White's were our neighbors for several years when we first moved to town and from Christmas one in Indiana we have spent part of the day together, now it's a tradition we all love.

And that about wraps up our Christmas nice and quiet and cozy! Hope yours was just as enjoyable!