Christmas morning

We had a lovely, simple Christmas. We feel like Santa was generous without being ostentatious....

Yes, that is Cracklin' Oat Bran. Santa knows that Elsie's favorite presents/days/experiences always have something to do with her favorite foods. (Can you see those awesome Christmas stockings from my mom!?)

Po is at that great age for Christmas... she really, really got into it. 

She loved her wonderful gifts from her grandparents. 

And the kids gave many thoughtful gifts to each other, thanks to some diligent garage sale and thrift store shopping with their own hard-earned money. 

Po rounded out her wooden toy collection. 

Each of the kids got a new suitcase from grandparents or Jonah and I. They are very very excited about going on a trip now... but, they'll have to wait until this summer I think. 

We had a great Christmas morning, followed by a fantastic evening when our friends, the Niemeyers from Sequim came over for Christmas dinner. They come to Maui every December, so we are trying to keep this tradition going... this is the third year in a row already! We love having them around (again, lost all of my iPhone photos from December, so no pictures this year).

Great stuff! We had a fun, somewhat simple Christmas Eve and Christmas. We, as usual, felt overwhelmed by the generosity of our parents who sent us so many nice and thoughtful gifts. And we were also grateful for Amazon.com, which paid for shipping 98% of the non-thrift store gifts this year. 

We were most grateful for the month leading up to Christmas, which although was filled with many activities, most of those activities really reminded us of how grateful we are for our Savior's birth, the celebration of which gives us good reason to share love and joy with others and to increase in joy ourselves, which is his Ultimate purpose, isn't it? We are grateful grateful grateful.

Merry Christmas 2013!