Nakita Grinie

Christmas for our family starts on December 23rd....Christmas Eve Eve.

Every year on the 23rd the girls and I bake cookies all day.

We made Monster M&M Cookies {HERE}, Candy Cane Kisses {HERE},  Fudge {HERE} & Ritzies.
How to make Ritzies:
 Make peanut butter sandwiches with Ritz crackers (I use Skippy Natural Creamy peanut butter)

Then the 5 of us go to dinner and then we go look at Christmas lights in our town.

One of the homes in our town has a light/music show. It is awesome. In front of their house they have containers to collect canned foods for the Food Bank.

We also have a Griswold house in our town. Every year it gets better and better!

The owners were in the driveway hanging out when we got there, so I made sure to tell him Thank you for always doing amazing decorations.

 Their electric bill is in the thousands each December. Yikes.

 Day 2 of Christmas for our family is Christmas Eve. We go to the afternoon Christmas Eve service at our church. Here is the annual Christmas Eve pic on our porch:

After church we head to my parents for our traditional Christmas Eve Dinner...Lasagna.

I grew up opening all my Christmas presents on Christmas Eve (and then Santa would come Christmas morning with 1 big present and stocking stuffers)

It was pure craziness at my parents with 5 little kids wanting to open presents. We got my dad a Quad Copter. He loves things like that.

Then we headed back home to put the kids to bed & it was Santa time!
The girls left Santa some cookies and a beer....Celebration because it has snow on the label. Ha!
Kate also made Santa a rainbow loom bracelet :)

Kevin set up his old train set for Luke as a surprise since Luke loves trains.

I didn't take many pics in the morning because it's pure craziness!

Last year was a lego Christmas for the girls....this year it was all about American Girl!

After presents we headed back to my parents.
It's all about Jimmy's 3 meat breakfast & my mom's amazing eggs. YUM.

The boys played with their new race car track & we watched A Christmas Story.

Then we headed back to our house to get ready for having everyone over to our house for Christmas Dinner.

It was so fun having everyone at our house, but it definately wasn't a relaxing day since we had to clean up our house and prep food! 

Everything was delicious. My menu was on THIS post. I will for sure be using this menu again next time I host Christmas.

The next morning on the 26th, we headed to Kevin's parents house for Larson Family Christmas.

Our 4th and final day of Christmas!

The only way to battle the exhaustion of 4 straight days of Christmas is by double fisting....coffee in one hand, Gin Fizzes in the other. (And being comfortable by spending the day in my blardigan!)

It was a fun day hanging out with the Larson clan, eating good food and playing a family favorite...Cribbage!

On the 27th I took down Christmas & pack it all away.

Yes, I am one of those people who takes down Christmas right after it's over.