First up for Christmas Eve was heading to church with Pat and Missy's family.
Afterward we bucked tradition and instead of staying at Kay's house, we headed to Pat & Missy's house to have a little gift-opening festivities.
We opened Round-Robin style.
Being the grand influence we are, we gave Aaron's gift to him in a special box...
No worries - an innocent gift of Army Men.
The rest of the openings were pretty straight-forward with the kids.
Samantha...
Amanda...
Jake. Each kid got some soap from Grandma Murphy. We informed them she was probably dropping some kind of hint...
Steven was fairly festive.
Missy and Pat as well as Mike and I received some much needed (at least on our part) kitchen supplies.
Maddie gave Kay a Christmas table-runner that she sewed herself. This girl is going to surpass me in the sewing department soon. On the bright side - I know who to run to when I need a hostess gift!
Christmas Day was fairly quiet. We only brought one gift down for each kid to open and the other Murphy's didn't show up until afternoon. We had a delicious meal and hung out as a family. Certainly a nice way to celebrate.
On Sunday however, Kay's house was packed. She hosted her family's Christmas - she has a big family.
The aunts buy gifts not only for their nieces and nephews, but also all their great-nieces/nephews. The nieces/nephews buy for the aunts. Once everyone is there, it's almost impossible to get within five feet of the tree.
The age ranges for the kids this year were 4 months to 18 years. If I just counted right, there were 17 kids there, plus all the parents, plus all the aunts/uncles, plus one on the way.
This family has it's fair share of red-heads...
Some goofier than others...
Which, of course, has to be followed by the "Christmas Head-butt"...
(Seriously, I heard their heads knock from about 5 feet away. Boys.)
Luckily Kay has two nice sized rooms. One room for gift opening and gabbing afterwards...
One room to watch the many games and to gab a little...
Thank goodness she also has a basement. A great place to
After everyone left, we took a minute to get a few family shots.
(And in case anyone is wondering why Missy and I aren't in these pictures it's because we were just taking "blood-line" relatives. This also explains why Ginger - Kay's dog - is excluded, much to the dismay of all kids involved.)
Finally - the whole clan...
Including Ginger, to everyone's satisfaction.
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