A merry holiday

All sorts of preparations went into Christmas Day this year. The kids spent an hour or three making special candy cane cookies for Santa. It was an involved process that let everone get some hands-on time.We had cookies of all shapes and sizes. Rikard even tried to make his red and white twists spell Santa's name. Tatum's cookies grew to monumental size, a couple stretched the length of my cookies sheets.
Then, we finally finished decorating the tree. It was Keeli's turn to put the star on top. It was a little crooked for a few minutes, but dad just reached up and fixed it. Good thing because I can't reach it :).

We watched a holiday movie and consulted NORAD's Santa Tracker throughout the evening to watch his progress. We learned some interesting holiday facts and the kids went to bed when Santa was reportedly over the Dakotas. We figured he was hitting the Moore house and would be here soon. Everyone went to sleep quickly on Christmas eve.

Too soon it was Christmas morning and everyone was anxious to share gifts with one another. Nana Linda's package arrived in the mail in time for packages to be under the tree. The weather prevented Nana, Papa and Sadie from arriving.
The most interesting thing this year was watching and listening to Rikard. Each package he opened he would exclaim, "This is just what I always wanted!" There wasn't anything he didn't promise to enjoy to its full extent. This year Santa got smart and bought him a pack of rechargeable batteries.

And then there was Rick. He thinks if he acts like the poster child for The UPS Store it will gain him points with Jim. Whatever! What a suck-up he can be.