Christmas Eve we celebrated at Jannie and Grampa's house with all the Arnerich (Jannie's side) relatives... but we sorely missed Aunt Kathy and her Christmas Cracker tradition. Kaky fell and broke her femur on the 23rd :( She was in the hospital having surgery on Christmas Eve. We really missed her and it wasn't the same without our Kaky, she wanted us to go ahead with the Christmas plans so we toasted her and will celebrate again WITH her famous crackers when she's on the mend. We had my dad's cracked crab traditional Christmas Eve dinner where the dishes all seem to get cleared and done pretty quickly as the kids await the Santa's sleigh sighting to run upstairs and wait for him to leave out the gifts. We opened a lot of gifts and lot of bottles of wine, makes for a fun night :) Merry Christmas!

Francie was wearing my "First Christmas" little red dress... Jannie was very happy to see I pulled it out of the depths of her closet.

"Come'on Soph."

Francie and her Jannie

The Christmas Tree

and the scene underneath

"Uh-oh it's LOUD again, the relatives must be here"

Ella, Francie and Luke playing around the train

"Merry Christmas" from James' nutcracker collection ;)

Emmy and Claire helping Francie open a present

Uncle Andy cleaning John's crab
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The boys around the artichoke dip

Of course Francie will look at the camera when Emmy is taking pictures, just not mom!

Claire, Ann, Emmy, Jerry and Connor

James, Francie and Drew at the kids table... Francie LOVES being with the big kids!

Francie pushed the little stool over to help Jannie with the dishes

Building towers with Gaunty Mimi and Drew

All the "kids" waiting for Santa to come upstairs in James' old room... and appearantly throwing gang signs to wish you a Merry Christmas. This is MY generation here but I am exempt from Santa for the first time this year and snuck up only to get a few pictures of course :)

Daddy explaining the "Santa waiting period" to Francie

After the chaos of everyone running down the stairs to see what was waiting there for them, Francie found her little barking, walking dog and hugged it :)

Drew got Rock Band II... lots of iPods, Blackberrys, Uggs and goodies left by Santa too

As Francie says "Ooooooo!" Emmy got a fancy set of makeup!

Time for The Swap! This year's theme was "Economy Buster" with a strict $25 limit, trying to get the most value or bang for the buck. Everyone brings a gift to throw in the pot and draws a number... you get to pick a gift and keep it or swap for something someone already opened that you like a little better.

Jannie gives a prize for the most popular gift and the best adaptation of the theme so it gets pretty competitive!

Jannie's 25 hardcover books from the library bookstore took top pick, my "Christmas decorations for next year" (I hit all the 75% off sales Christmas Eve morning) was close behind and there were some good entertaining cases of beer, busting the economy books, lottery tickets and champagne which always seems to make an appearance.