Christmas morning and the Coffee Santa

We disappointed that Grandpa T had not recovered from surgery enough to travel for the holidays, but the kids were excited to get to spend time with their cousins Cassie and Leah (and see them walk!). We expected them to arrive for dinner on Christmas eve, but our crazy wind and snow delayed them until after 10pm. It took Chad over 1 hr to make the 30 min drive to the airport. Their plane had to be towed to the gait. The doors of the baggage area were frozen shut and they did not make it to our house until 12:30 a.m. It was a little stressful for Aunt Jamie.

For our old traditions, we left our plate of cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I actually had to get the kids back up out of bed to do this because we had forgotten (and I would NEVER hear the end of it if we did) For a new tradition, we've had a empty "manger" sitting on our table with tissue paper "straw" waiting to have Jesus arrive. Here the kids are putting out the cookies and you can see the baby arrived.

Due to the Seefurths late arrival and our lack of owning a coffee pot, Chad volunteered to make an early morning Starbucks run on Christmas morning. Yes, there is at least 1 Starbucks open on Christmas morning. We called Chad the "Coffee Santa" and for Aunt Jamie and Uncle Cory that may have been the best present of all. Coffee Santa even got his kids some cocoa.

Cole and Makaila were CHAMPS. They woke up at 7 as expected. We made a big deal about how tired the Seattle fam would be and they couldn't leave their room earlier than that. The Seattle family got up somewhere after 9. Being that cousins are only 15 months old, getting food is more important than opening presents. And then since Grammy, Grandpa T and Grandma Maxine couldn't be here for Christmas, we had to set up the web cam (which unfortunately meant downloading a few things). Needless to say, my kids made it until roughly 11am with only opening 1 present each. That is pretty good for a 3 yr-old and 6 yr-old on Christmas morning with full pile of presents under the tree.