Christmas in Ohio

Whew. Christmas in Ohio was wild this year! Wild, I tell you.

It all started when we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's on the 22nd, a day before M and G and Trucker were scheduled to arrive. Only Geg was already there, so things were fairly quiet when we got there. We were so excited though because we were going to have a full house--my parents, the four of us, Geg, Surf, Cali, Little T, and M, G, and Trucker. We'd only be missing Local Hero and Local Heroine (who spent their holiday in Okinawa) as well as A, who was deployed in Guam. So there were going to be 14 people staying for a week in my parents' 3-bedroom home. My mom had spent weeks figuring out sleeping arrangements as well as a seating chart for their dining table. She had it all down to a science, complete with lists and diagrams when we arrived!

After we got there we spent some time posing for pictures. I love this one.
Grandpa played the piano with R (one of her favorite things to do at my parents' house) and she ran around breaking in all the toys that Grandma has hidden in various nooks and crannies. And, of course, R loved watching Grandpa run the trains while wearing the engineer hat. (My brothers and I absolutely loved those hats when we were kids. There is something about wearing an engineer hat while watching model trains that is absolutely magical.)
On the morning of the 23rd, we got up bright and early to head to the West Side Market and stock up on tons and tons of food. My mom started cooking a huge ham (so that we'd have leftovers aplenty to feed everyone over the next week!)

While M and the boys were supposed to get in sometime on the 23rd, M called and said, unfortunately, she and the boys were going to come on the 24th instead because G had a fever. We were all disappointed to have to wait longer to see them, but we also understood.

Then she called on the morning of the 24th and said they were taking him to urgent care just to rule out strep. As it was, they weren't planning to arrive until dinner time.

Surf, Cali, and Little T's plane was getting in at 4:30 p.m., so we were all psyched up for a huge family reunion for Christmas Eve. Presents were wrapped and showing up under the tree.

Surf, Cali, and Little T finally got in. We had the kids in their Christmas finest. Check out Little T and RUS below.
My mom gets out all the Christmas Eve foods-- an antipasto plate, chips and guacamole, a vegetable tray with an amazing veggie dip, a fruit tray with fruit dip, and other miscellaneous hors d'oeuvres. We're all milling around talking, watching the kids, anticipating M's arrival. Then we get a phone call, and as it turns out, A is on his way to join us for Christmas. We were shocked. But, there were the usual hijinks with his flight and other flights and, well, long story short, his plane wasn't getting in to Dayton until midnight. So he and M and the kids were going to be driving up and getting in really late. (This was, of course, after M and the kids had already been at the airport since 6 p.m.-- poor M!)

We then postponed our usual Christmas Eve family gift exchange until the morning, since it became clear that none of us were going to be able to just stay up and wait for them to arrive.

Oh, and of course, it wouldn't be Christmas Eve without my dad playing German music on the accordion.
So... Christmas Morning was Insane.

We tried to do the gift exchange, and we kind of did, but with five children under the age of three (for those keeping score at home, G was almost 3, R was 2 1/2, Little T was 16 months, Trucker was 11 months, and RUS was 2.5 months old) underfoot, there was no way that any kind of order could be imposed on the proceedings. We usually take turns opening gifts, going from youngest to oldest, and we really get into watching and talking about what everyone gets. Not so much this time. Plus, the kids all needed to eat at different times.

R is the earliest riser, so she gets up at the crack of dawn and eats right away with my parents. So she was okay because she'd already had something like ten bowls of cereal by 7 a.m. but the other kids--Trucker and Little T in particular--really needed to be fed so M and Cali were busy feeding them while others were opening gifts. Then when they sat down, we had to start passing out gifts because otherwise G and R were going to burst from anticipation. They'd already opened their stockings, but they couldn't wait to start opening other gifts.

The gifts got passed out and we just opened them pell-mell. G and R did the whole "first gift that I open is the gift I want to play with immediately and to heck with everything else!" For R that gift was a pink mixer. Perfect for mixing up cookie dough-- her favorite. For G, it was a set of walkie talkies. This was his favorite gift until he opened up a Polar Express remote controlled train set. So. Awesome.

The absolute surprise hit of the Christmas season, however, was a jack-in-the-box that Trucker received. R could not stop playing with it, and the other kids all took turns playing with it. I could not believe how much they all got into it. I mean, seriously? But, yeah. Seriously.

Anyway, for the purposes of this blog post, suffice it to say, after this point, J and I got really really bad at taking pictures. Mostly because we were always so busy with everything going on. Our entire week at my parents' house was packed. So I don't really have much photographic evidence of most of the week.

The day after Christmas we got to spend some time with my grandmother and aunt and uncle and cousins in Wooster, which was awesome. R, Little T, and G spent half their time there jumping out of a stool and pretending to be a jack-in-the-box. Hilarious.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur. My parents' living room looked like a toy store had vomited into it for the rest of the time we were there. R had the time of her life with Grandma and Grandpa, and one of her favorite things -- among many favorites! -- was watching Christmas videos ("Santa Claus is Coming To Town" as well as a compendium of Christmas songs from classic children's TV specials).

As for RUS, his first Christmas was spent laughing and hanging out with Grandma. She could make him laugh and smile like nobody else. He got bunches and bunches of clothes-- thank goodness, since J and I don't have a lot of clothes we can hand-down from R!-- and some great new teething and rattling toys.