Happy Christmas!

I couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive this year - I even put the trees up the day after Halloween! This is our third Christmas in the new house and Orlando is definitely home now :)

 

The night before, we watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' again - my favorite Christmas movie!

We did our regular family gifts in the morning as usual. Maddy's was thrilled with her waterproof phone case, pillow cases and gift cards, Mike was very excited about his tickets for Linkin Park, his speaker for the shower and Monsters University hat. I got a ton of stuff including an amazing new camera and some vintage goodies too! Maddy had no idea what these things even were...!

 

We decided on a Shark Tank theme for our family Christmas party this year. That's Dragon's Den to you Brits :). For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Shark Tank is a TV show where entrepreneurs pitch to a group of ''sharks' to gain investments in their businesses. The products featured are generally new ideas or inventions and whether they get a deal or not, these products generally sell in the millions after appearing on the show. It's one of our favorite TV shows as a family and we thought Christmas would be a great opportunity to gift products from the show for some fun! 

It was beautiful weather as usual for our 4Rivers Christmas meal out back...

And then everyone arrived :). The Jen, Rich and Mya looked particularly fancy...

  Right down to Mya's nails!

With all the fanciness we couldn't resist a 'cruise line' photo...

Before the meal, we Skyped with England this year which was particularly hilarious, partly because they were 5 hours drunker than we were:)

 

Jen's Christmas games were a big hit!

 The food was amazing!

 

The kids loved the English Christmas crackers too although Cormac wasn't sure exactly what to do with the hat!

 

It's one of the few days of the year that you can eat exacty what you want - guilt free:). We all got a kick out of Richard's plateful of Liz's famous cake with some brussels sprouts!

Mike and Rita did a fine job in the kitchen...

...although things sometimes got a bit stressful...

The gifts were hilarious (Mike was probably the most excited about his squatty potty) and in a flash it was all over :(. Thank you to my amazing family for sharing in another great Christmas together. Until next year....We love you!