Christmas 2011, Part 2: Christmas Eve

It has become a tradition to spend Christmas Eve with my parents and brother at our house, and of course, this (last) year was the best one yet.  They drove up to go to our church with us in the morning and came back to our house to have lunch and spend the day together.  Instead of cooking this year, my parents picked up BBQ from Jim N Nicks.  That will definitely be added to the tradition list!  The food was delicious, and the clean up was easy. 

Before his afternoon nap, Will had some fun on Uncle Russell's shoulders.

After his nap, it was time for presents!  

Russell is showing off his award-winning wrapping skills.

 The gift inside that beautiful wrapping job?  Why, a camouflage Snuggie, of course.

I love how they're both playing with their toys.

 Uncle Russell loved his picture frame with his favorite nephew!

Will examined many pieces of wrapping paper.

Russell was getting a kick out of making all of Will's new noisy toys "sing."  Poor Will was just confused.

Homemade ornaments of Will's hand and foot.  Mom said about the green one, "It doesn't look right.  You can't tell it's his hand!"  That's because it was his foot. 

In my family, another tradition we have is the way we wrap gifts.  We don't like to make it easy to get to the present, so we put things in misleading boxes, wrap boxes within boxes, and often cover entire gifts in packing tape or duct tape.  So, as you can see, Russell was really pumped about his box of nursing pads. :)

But inside was a luggage tag with a picture of him and Will. 

Meanwhile, Will was really getting into his piano!

Then, he enjoyed sitting with his Granddaddy.

Giving kisses.

Dad was glowing over his laptop!

Russell was having a pity party after Dad opened his laptop and all he got was new boxers.

Then we realized he had one more present.  I know this pic is blurry, but I love how it captures his reaction of the box.

A breast pump box to go with the nursing pads!

Inside the breast pump box was a gift bag, and inside the gift bag was another wrapped box. 

Another pump!  But for an air mattress.  He's saying, "I want to pump (clap) YOU up!"

A little hand sanitizer he gave us a while back from a previous job.  I needed to add weight to the box.

Inside the air mattress pump (along with the hand sanitizer) was another wrapped box.  Inside that wrapped box was a piece of paper.  This is his reaction upon reading the paper.  Probably my favorite picture of the day!

 The paper announced his gift of a NASCAR driving experience at Atlanta Motor Speedway! (and his pity party came to an abrupt halt!)

We enjoyed the rest of the evening watching Will play with his new toys.

 (he loves to eat his toes!)

We had such a great day and evening together, and Will had a fun-filled first Christmas Eve! Then, it was off to bed for Will so Santa wouldn't pass over our house!

For my family...video capturing Mom's and Russell's reactions to Dad opening his laptop.

Russell opening his NASCAR driving experience.