The Culver Family: We Wish you a Merry Christmas

Laura & Ryan hosted Christmas eve. The adorable children all Christmased up in their plaid and argyle. I swear they were smiling like this all evening and there was no whining or fighthing with cousins and no threats of Santa still putting them on the naughty list. I swear.

We had a delicious steak dinner, followed by the first round of presents

The Evil Dr. Porkchop--a BIG hit from Nana & Papa

My mom and I making the same, "Oh my gosh! What did you get?" faces. So fun.

Then it was home to bed to wait for Santa. Jack remembered when he woke up that it was Christmas morning, and I wish we had the video camera. Santa was good to us. He went a little overboard, but good :-)

All primped and ready to go to brunch at Nana's....after the car gets flung off the track one more time.

A lovely brunch with the Sullivan aunts, uncles and cousints (over 40 people) at my mom & dad's house.

Then it was back home to our house to "host" dinner. My dad bought and cooked the entire meal, and everyone pitched in to prep and clean, so we really just provided the plates. We also created a "perfect storm" of follies by trying to light a fire in the fireplace. I'll save the technical details, but a faulty flue + a whole house fan basically caused a vacuum in the house, shutting down the heat and the hot water. Luckily we had an electrician and an engineer on hand to piece it all together and get it running again (THANK YOU DAD AND UNCLE PAT!!) It just wouldn't be a holiday without an appliance malfunction.