Janie's first Christmas! We were at Grampa and Jannie's house for Christmas Eve - which is usually our big night of gifts, Cracked Crab dinner, Santa, swaps and the ever-growing Mr/Mrs Christmas contest. It;s a full night - next year we decided we may need to start earlier since we had to take the girls home at midnight and we hadn't even gotten to one of the swaps yet! It was a great night- I love Christmas at my parents house and it's 100 times more fun watching the girls getting into the spirit too.

The pretty tree and lots of presents ready for swaps and swapping

Mr Jerry Christmas - another good showing this year! Jerry started the contest three years ago when he thought people were showing up for Christmas Eve too casual...

the plaque - he was going for a three-peat

James and Em - I'm not even sure what to say about this outfit on my brother

Emmy, Em and I trying to add some sparkle

Aunt Mimi making delicious cheesy puffs - I think I had 12

Jannie and her niece and nephews (aka contestants)

The "kids table" (ha)

and the KIDS table

Jannie and Grampa - the chefs and host/hostess extraordinaire!

Ann and Pat making their Brother-in-law John Galassini's famous tortellinis

after dinner waiting for Santa upstairs! Always an energy charged 5 minutes

Santa left Francie her much anticipated Princess roller-skates, JJ got an alphabet music toy thing and Maisie- well Maisie wanted tinkerbell roller-skates but turns out they don't make specific tinkerbell ones but Santa found a Tinkerbell helmet which seemed perfect since the morning "big" Santa gifts were shiny new pink bikes. She was pretty happy with the purple Tinkerbell helmet but my brother Jerry was like "Mary - a HELMET from Santa?!" I guess it was a little weird

still a happy kid

and a SERIOUSLY happy kid

roller skating fool

Let the chaos begin

first up after Santa was the "Hilarious" swap

my favorite swap gift was my sister's but she made me promise not to blog it or she'd get in trouble for re-gifting. but it was GOOD!

and it's time to get serious - The "talent show" portion of the Mr/Mrs Christmas contest. A score card with 11 categories and a total of 75 points possible was assembled by Jerry and even emailed to everyone a week before the big day. Intense

James was very serious about his big surprise this year. And adamant the show had to be outside as usual even though it was FREEZING

the first act…

not even sure what they did I was busy getting ready ;) but I'm sure they were fabulous

The Heffs + Emmy's entry - the creche/nativity scene live and in person. This may seem slightly irreverent but we were just there to remind these competitive family members…

the true meaning of Christmas is not glitz, glamour and sequins… it's the Baby Jesus! (and if you can't tell - Emmy is the Angel Gabriel, I am Mary, Heff is Joseph, Francie is a "wise-woman" riding a donkey Maisie is a sheep and Janie is Baby Jesus of course)

A squirmy Baby Jesus!

We thought we were a shoe-in… didn't even make the top 5!

Then we were so proud of the girls- they both got up and sang songs for their own entries. Francie appropriately sang "I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N"

and Maisie sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - the lamb costume kills me!

Gerald up next - looking for another win

JJ thinks we are all crazy

and then came this… WOW is all I can say. Emily appeared first in an impressive homemade corset/tutu and did a little Nutcracker ballet for us

then Darth Vadar (or so we thought) appeared from the darkness floating along (or riding a Segway- yes my brother James rented a Segway for the contest)

then he and Emily had a choreographed dance routine

and their COSTUMES LIT UP (all homemade- my brother bought some LED light up stuff off some guy in Oakland!)

and then we realized this was actually DARTH XMAS performing for us

and Rabbi Lowenstein showed up again this year (James' finale last year - and yes he also rented a rabbi costume) but HE was actually Rabbi GLOW-enstein (or maybe Pat)

and they light-saber fought

this went on for awhile…

until Darth XMAS announced he had bad news for Glowenstein…. "I am your FATHER"

the judges… not an easy job anymore

but the most impressive gift/show/thing all night was this charcoal painting Claire did in Art Class at BC as a gift for Emmy - it looks EXACTLY like one of Emmy's favorite photos of her and her mom - AMAZING!!!