Christmas morning was much what we expected as Jenn and I were awoken by the excited voices of Nick and Taylor, stating “Santa came here! Santa came here!” I must say I was surprised to look and see that it was after 8am, instead of 5:45 or something. Anyway, we couldn’t resist their urging for us to get up any longer so we arose and Jenn went to wake up Sam.
Since this is Sam’s first Christmas, where he actually knows somewhat of what’s going on, we decided I would go down first and get Sam’s first reaction of the tree and presents on video tape. As you can see in the video, his facial expression didn’t change too much at first sight (probably due to just having been pryed from slumber), but as soon as Jenn let him down, he bolted for the tree and grabbed the first present he could. What followed can only be described as vicious, giftwrap-ripping carnage brought on by the 3 kids. They made quick and effective work of unwrapping the gifts, and elated shouts of “wow, look what I got!” and “Cool!” and “Can I open another one?”, filled the room Even Sam was no slouch when it came to unwrapping gifts, easily ripping through the wrapping to expose the treasure within. In the aftermath, the atmosphere was much more calm and the kids (and adults) settled into taking a closer look at their gifts. Sam was particularly interested in his motorized “yip-yip” puppy, as you’ll see in the video. Nick was immediately drawn to his ginormous, new race-car tuner shop Lego set. In fact, his uncle Josh and I spent a better part of the day helping him assemble the individual cars and garage included in the mammoth 650+ piece set. Taylor, the artist, began working with her new set and book for drawing animated characters. Additionally, she also got her own little video camera so now she’ll be able to make her own movies that she always wants to. Baby Pip was not to be forgotten and also received gifts. During my Christmas Eve scramble I found the tiniest pink sweater and knew it was perfect for the baby. It was hilarious wrapping it up for Jen to open as it fit easily into a small 6″x1″ deep box. 
Even more funny was the discovery that Jenn’s mom had also bought this very same sweater for us. Other gifts of note are the new photo printer I got for Jenn and a digital picture frame I got from Jenn’s parents. Jenn was thrilled with the new printer as it is much better than the sloth-like dinosaur it replaces and will help with her emerging custom scrapbook business. The digital picture frame is a very cool and easy to use gadget. W have so many photos on CDs and on my laptop that I’ve forgotten about and now I can put them on it and have it play an endless slideshow. It also plays music and video but I haven’t played with that yet.
Christmas this year was very nice as we didn’t have to go anywhere and we could just relax and enjoy each other’s company and gifts. You can check out a small portion of our Christmas fun by viewing the video and photos I uploaded in the media albums.
Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!!
Sounds like you had a great time! Happy New Year!