Christmas Festivities

We are lucky to have both Mylo's Dad and Stepmom and his Mom living in town, which makes the whole sharing Christmas with the in-laws a lot easier when you have divorced and blended families. Additionally, my mom was able to be in town and join in all the Allen family festivities.

PART I - We kicked off our Christmas Festivities on Christmas Eve morning with brunch and gifts at Mylo's Dad & Stepmom's house with Uncle Jesse and Uncle Andrew. We do a gift exchange with this side of the family amongst the adults and Grandpa Blago and Grandma Kristi do stockings for everyone. We made cinnamon rolls to contribute to the brunch and ate a ton of food - egg bake, sausage, and of course cinnamon rolls.

The loot under the Christmas tree.

Ollie was the official stocking elf. Can you believe how grown up he looks?

Henry took a header into the concrete floors early on, but he recovered enough to play with and demolish a couple candy canes.

After opening gifts, I opted to run home from Blago and Kristi's house, which off of Chuckanut Drive. The rain and wind subsided enough for me to have a lovely run on the interurban trail, through Arroyo Park, and up the hill to our house. It was a little over 6 miles and might have been the best gift I got - an hour of peace and running by myself.

Part II - On Christmas Eve proper, Mylo's entire extended family from his Dad's side of the family gets together for a potluck dinner, a visit from "Santa," and lots catching up with the family. Ollie was loving his cousin time (2nd cousins - no local 1st cousins yet) and was running around having a great time with all the younger kiddos. Henry was a good sport about being passed around.

As is custom with the Allen clan, a family member always dresses up as Santa to distribute the Santa Gifts (usually something small - socks, pjs, etc) to everyone. This year Chris morphed into Santa. Ollie was so into the whole Santa thing this year, so when Chris walking into the living room, Ollie sprinted across the room yelling, "Santa is here, Santa is here, Santa is here." It was so funny.

Chris aka Santa

Waiting in anticipation for Santa gifts

Ollie was not shy with Santa and went right up and gave him a huge hug.

Henry on the other hand, was not so sure about Santa.

Part III - On Christmas morning, we opened gifts and stockings as a family at our house with my mom. The boys were up early and I think we opened gifts around 7 a.m. All I know is that it was still dark out. My mom took most of the pictures, so I will have to post them once I get them from her. Ollie was pretty stoked about his airport and Henry's little race track, which he has continued to hijack from Henry at every chance he can get. I got some running gear, a beautiful orchid, and a key beaper - so I can find my keys, which I am constantly misplacing. Mylo got a new bird feeder, a cast iron skillet, and lots of socks.

Later that morning, Mylo's mom, brother and grandmother came over and we exchanged gifts once again. Ollie got a rad garbage truck from Grandma Wendy that is a replica of the SSC garbage trucks we have in town. Needless to say, it was one of his favorite gifts. We had brunch with the family and I promptly started taking down all the Christmas decor since we were leaving town for a week the next day. Once Christmas is over, I am sooooo ready to pack up all the decorations until next year. For Christmas dinner, we made vietnamese spring rolls, which were delicious and a nice change from all the heavy Christmasy food we had been eating for the last few days. Then it was off to the airport in the morning for our Park City/Wyoming Adventure (more on that later)....