The festivities started on Christmas Eve after the children's mass where Sarah sang in the Children's Choir. It was a lovely mass, although the weather outside was not so lovely. It had rained nearly all day and was till cold and rainy outside. We were fortunate enough, however, to be invited to a friends house for the evening to enjoy a wonderful meal, fabulous company and a lot of laughs.
The children had a terrific seating arrangement in the very clean and organized garage of our hosts. The parents, on the other hand, were in the beautiful dining room enjoying our meal.
After dinner we had a surprise guest. That's right, it was Santa. After he was done talking to each child there, he had them all sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as he made his exit. He is very busy as we all know.
One curious child ran to the window as Santa left, and then exclaimed "Santa has a car!"
We were then treated to a 'show' by the hostess' girls. They were having a ball twirling and twirling (and twirling) about. I've been told that a 'show' goes on there just about every day. Oh to be a kid again.
The fun didn't stop there, though. Some of the adults participated in an gift swap, or what I would call a yankee swap. The rules were slightly different but it was very fun watch all the hilarity. The party wound down just in time for us to get home and read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas while it was still the night before Christmas and head right off to bed. Everyone seemed to think they had been good this year and were looking forward to morning. The meeting time was 7am. Good Night!
The morning came quickly, so I came down to the tree to see if Santa had come. He had so I let everyone know they could come down to the bottom of the stairs for the stair picture (more on this in a separate blog).
Matthew, Sarah, Colin and Macki came running into the room with smiles on their faces and went right to work. Opening presents, of course. Colin got a really cool statue of Santa that is hinged at the belt so you can put a few treasures in it. You can also see Matthew in the picture wearing his new St. L hat.
I hit the jackpot with Sarah, however. I was able to capture her joy when she opened her Northface that she got from Emma. She reaaaally wanted this particular kind of jacket and she was thrilled.
Then, if you can believe it, I caught her in disbelief when she opened the Snow Tree Angel crown that I had purchased months before at the Joffrey Costume Vault Sale. I told a little white lie and told her that there weren't any Nutcracker costumes at the sale, but it was totally worth it see her excitement when she realized what it was.
The fun didn't stop there, because we were having 45 guests (the Dwyers) for Christmas dinner and had to finish getting everything ready. As is always the case, with a little hard work (and a quick nap) by our family team we were able to get it all done. The guests started to arrive right on time so before everything got too hectic, I conned one of my nieces into taking a quick shot of the five of us, oh sorry, six of us.
Dinner turned out great, thanks to everyone who brought something or helped out. After celebrating a quick 40th birthday we got down to business and huddled around the Christmas tree to give out the gifts.
There was no way to capture the craziness of it all, but let's just say that there weren't any tears at all. Not even from the new babies! One of the traditions at any Dwyer gathering is to play a game after dinner. There is usually some discussion about what game to play, but today someone had brought a game that they had just played for the first time a few days prior and thought it would be fun to play here. The only requirement was that you had to have three dollar bills to play. So everyone got there money ready and started playing the largest game of LCR I had ever seen!
There were three six foot tables end to end and the playing went on for well over an hour. Three games were played, some going into double and triple rounds. It was a very merry christmas!
The children had a terrific seating arrangement in the very clean and organized garage of our hosts. The parents, on the other hand, were in the beautiful dining room enjoying our meal.
After dinner we had a surprise guest. That's right, it was Santa. After he was done talking to each child there, he had them all sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as he made his exit. He is very busy as we all know.
One curious child ran to the window as Santa left, and then exclaimed "Santa has a car!"
We were then treated to a 'show' by the hostess' girls. They were having a ball twirling and twirling (and twirling) about. I've been told that a 'show' goes on there just about every day. Oh to be a kid again.
The fun didn't stop there, though. Some of the adults participated in an gift swap, or what I would call a yankee swap. The rules were slightly different but it was very fun watch all the hilarity. The party wound down just in time for us to get home and read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas while it was still the night before Christmas and head right off to bed. Everyone seemed to think they had been good this year and were looking forward to morning. The meeting time was 7am. Good Night!
The morning came quickly, so I came down to the tree to see if Santa had come. He had so I let everyone know they could come down to the bottom of the stairs for the stair picture (more on this in a separate blog).
Matthew, Sarah, Colin and Macki came running into the room with smiles on their faces and went right to work. Opening presents, of course. Colin got a really cool statue of Santa that is hinged at the belt so you can put a few treasures in it. You can also see Matthew in the picture wearing his new St. L hat.
I hit the jackpot with Sarah, however. I was able to capture her joy when she opened her Northface that she got from Emma. She reaaaally wanted this particular kind of jacket and she was thrilled.
Then, if you can believe it, I caught her in disbelief when she opened the Snow Tree Angel crown that I had purchased months before at the Joffrey Costume Vault Sale. I told a little white lie and told her that there weren't any Nutcracker costumes at the sale, but it was totally worth it see her excitement when she realized what it was. 
The fun didn't stop there, because we were having 45 guests (the Dwyers) for Christmas dinner and had to finish getting everything ready. As is always the case, with a little hard work (and a quick nap) by our family team we were able to get it all done. The guests started to arrive right on time so before everything got too hectic, I conned one of my nieces into taking a quick shot of the five of us, oh sorry, six of us. 
Dinner turned out great, thanks to everyone who brought something or helped out. After celebrating a quick 40th birthday we got down to business and huddled around the Christmas tree to give out the gifts.
There was no way to capture the craziness of it all, but let's just say that there weren't any tears at all. Not even from the new babies! One of the traditions at any Dwyer gathering is to play a game after dinner. There is usually some discussion about what game to play, but today someone had brought a game that they had just played for the first time a few days prior and thought it would be fun to play here. The only requirement was that you had to have three dollar bills to play. So everyone got there money ready and started playing the largest game of LCR I had ever seen!
There were three six foot tables end to end and the playing went on for well over an hour. Three games were played, some going into double and triple rounds. It was a very merry christmas!
2 comments:
Excellent family picture!!! Send me a hard copy?
Love the family picture too! Finn got LRC as a gift for Christmas this year, too! I feel a pizza and game night coming on!!
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