An Early Christmas

This year we celebrated an early Christmas so that Jake could be here with us. For Jake's last weekend before deployment we headed out on Friday night to find a Christmas tree. (Unfortunately, we ended up with an overpriced, already dead tree, but that discovery came later.) We spent Saturday morning decorating the tree, and after the children went to bed that night I stayed up late wrapping presents while Jake worked on something for the Navy. 

We only wrapped the presents from 'mom and dad', as Santa can only come on Christmas, of course! There were also a couple new build-a-bears and toys from the Disney Store that the kids bought on Saturday with their Christmas money from Nana and Grandpa. We had to make a special trip out to New Orleans in order to fix two build-a-bears that had been ruined from various accidents with the kids, but because they had voice recorders inside had needed to be unstuffed to be put through the washer. And since I don't plan on going back to New Orleans anytime soon, we decided to let the kids spend some of their Christmas money while we were there. Sorry, I digress. Here is the tree ready for our 'Christmas morning':

There are no actual photos from the unwrapping, as we were busy having fun with the kids and had the camcorder going. After a fun morning, we headed out to the movies to see Tangled. The movie started right before noon, so we had a lunch of popcorn, gummi savers, and lemonade. When we got home, we took Sarah for a walk around the block and headed out back for some outdoor fun. Then the ice cream truck came through the neighborhood and we let the kids splurge on even more junk food. But hey, that's standard for Christmas, right? 

The kids just love the swing set that daddy and grandad built. They also attached a slide to the clubhouse, so we are all set.

I'm thankful that we had this opportunity with Jake's deployment being so close to Christmas. The last time Jake was deployed, he left mid-November and so it was way too early to celebrate together. 

It was a great early Christmas Day.