And the presents were hung on the tree with care...

If we hung the gifts we got the little ones this year on our tree, the whole thing would come crashing to the floor! I will be the first to admit, E and I have gotten a bit carried away this Christmas. The little guys are old enough now to have such fun and, hopefully, they won't just focus on how much of the wrapping paper they can cram into their mouths like they did last Christmas.

We shop all year long and put things into a big box on a high shelf in my closet. When we got it down this year both of us were flabbergasted. We put a few things back for the boys' and baby girl's birthdays but not much.

Then we spotted these cute Mickey and Minnie when we met the Millers at Disney for the Epcot food and wine festival in Oct...and then there were the Tonka trucks that Papa said every little guy needs and the stove set which took us almost four hours to assemble and it was an "easy to assemble" one...lol.


Now the big kids gifts are in this mound too. E does all the wrapping (one year he even wrapped his own boxed gifts...lol) as he has far more patience than I do and makes prettier pkgs as a result. And the shopping cart I found a 'real deal' on.
Now some of these gifts stay at Nana and Papa's house like the big bag of Mega Blocks, the grocery cart and the kitchen set (at the request of their parents who went a bit overboard themselves). And our baby Leighton has her fair share. I have started her her own Snowman collection!

And this was the Christmas gift our garden gave us today... this beautiful camellia and the bush is loaded with buds.

Tomorrow we are starting our Lemoncello with some of the lemons from our tree. I was told today that drinking Lemoncello at Christmas is a big Italian tradition but we did not start our own soon enough this year...it needs to 'ferment' a while to be really good. But, we do have a half bottle of some lovely Lemoncello we tried in Italy ten years ago and that our local liquor store carries. So E and I will toast each other with that and drink ours on New Year's Eve

Happy holidays and we sure can't wait to play Santa!