Christmas - Bruno Style

I'm happy to report that the Brunos have survived another Christmas, more or less intact. The house is still a bit of a wreck but I guess that's to be expected. Ready for an overview?

After prepping dinner as best I could on Christmas Eve, Xander and I went over to Dad's house for lunch and the annual gift hunt (Krissy tells me that her kids don't like it, but Xander loves hunting up gifts). Dad made a big turkey and we all contributed side dishes. Afterwards there was gift opening, and I attempted to get a picture of the cousins together - Xander was being a grump, and I'm not sure what Braden's up to! LOL!

Back at the Bruno homestead, we had our traditional fish dinner. Xander, too - he had one of those frozen kid dinners with fish sticks. And then it was time for our present frenzy. Well, it's not much of a frenzy really because we all take turns opening. Xander was being very helpful by getting presents out from under the tree and reading tags. He was happy with everything he got, even the clothes!

Afterwards we took stock of our booty, and Xander popped in his new Scooby Doo DVD to watch. He's been watching it fairly non-stop since Christmas Eve. Sigh. It was hard to get him to go to sleep that night, he was way too pumped up! And he left Santa a feast - four cookies, a candy cane, and a Ferraro Rocher.

Christmas morning Xander was up at 6:30am (yawn!) and ready for some more presents. (He also got a dollar from the Tooth Fairy, since Aunt Krissy helped him pluck out his other loose tooth while we were at Dad's.) Santa had left Xander his big present under the little tree in his bedroom. But first we had to do our stockings - we all made out pretty well there, I can assure you!

Xander got the Dragon World Fortress that he'd asked Santa for, and played with that and his new Legos for most of the day. I spent way too much time on the floor putting these Legos together into cars and space ships - man did my back hurt!

Another fairly new tradition for the Brunos is for Joe and Xander to get coordinating gifts. The first year it was light sabers - Joe had got one for Xander, and I surprised Joe with one for him too so they could have saber fights together. Last year they got matching blankets. This year I got them a Nerf Dart Tag game, which they played on Christmas morning.

You can laugh at Joe for the helmet, but he needed it! Xander doesn't have very good aim, but lots of enthusiasm. I've played with him a couple of times, too, and I can tell you those Nerf darts hurt when you get hit with them (especially in the face!). We're going to have to get refills...we've already lost a couple darts!

Jean came up for dinner on Christmas Day - my first honey glazed spiral ham, and it was awesome! - and then we just chilled. Lots of napping, lots of reading, lots of playing. I'm happy to report that Xander is at daycare for the next three days; poor kid needs to play with other kids. And I'm back at work. The fun is over for another year, but fun it definitely was!