Boxing Day!

Boxing Day is always a fun time for kids to enjoy their new toys:)

A droid and a drone? What on earth was Santa thinking?:)

Our Star Wars Christmas Day!

This Christmas was our fourth time hosting at our house and our biggest party so far with 20 of us celebrating together! We decided to change it up a little this year and Mike prepped the food the day before and we opened family gifts together on Christmas Eve. Maddy got a beautiful new bike which she was really excited about and I got a ton of clothes, jewelry and books and was generally spoiled rotten. We'll get to Mike's gifts later...;) With some extra time back in the morning we were able to participate in our first Disney VoluntEARS event delivering food to families in need in the West Orange county area...

The Food for Families event has been happening for 24 years and they raised over $3M worth of food this year. We were all deeply moved by the thousands of people who give up their Christmas mornings to serve others. It was an inspirational start to the day and we were all really glad we signed up.

After a little snooze, the family started to arrive and the fun began. The food turned out beautifully and we managed to fit everyone onto the table which I was very relieved about!

 

The girls looked stunning in their outfits:)

 

 

And those younglings....the Force is so strong with them:)

 

 

And of course there were gifts and games aplenty...

 

 

It was a fun-filled, perfect family day. We even got to see family in England on facetime which was soooo lovely too:). Thank you Liz, Matt, Declan, Cormac, Jen, Rich, Mya, Sara, Jamie, Duke, Richard, Sue, Dave, Eileen, Mabel, Milo and Rita for coming and making our Christmas party so special - we love you all!!!

 

The Christmas Force!

Mike and Maddy were really excited about the release of the new Star Wars movie so we decided to have a Force-themed Christmas party this year! Mike totally outdid himself with his tree - although he got a big carried away with his new toy during decorating (despite the warnings) and got a lightsabre-related injury...

Everyone loved his tree...it was totally awesome!!

I managed to watch all 6 of the previous films to get up to speed before the new release and was really excited by the time that the big day came too. We got tickets for opening night and despite the fact that we arrived at the theater 2 hours early we still only got back row seats! But we didn't care - we all wanted a good view of the audience as they cheered through the reintroduction of the beloved heroes from the past...:)

It was a fantastic night - we all loved the movie and I was so proud of my amazing employer for bringing Star Wars back to life for the world! Also, On the Disney front, Hollywood Studios had added a couple of Star Wars themed attractions over the past few weeks (and this year is the 20th anniversary (and the last) year of the famous dancing Osborne lights) so we headed over for night as a family the week before Christmas...

 

The new Star Wars themed fireworks were amazing!!!!

And in what seemed like a flash the big day was here!!!