Merry Christmas Everyone

My family is watching Kung Fu Panda at the moment, so I took a second to sneak away and send out my holiday greetings. It has been a wonderful, quiet day--I'm still wearing my pajamas. It has been snowing pretty much non-stop for the past 24 hours and we are happy to have the excuse to stay indoors where it's cozy. See, I guess snow is good for something after all. We actually woke up to things not so cozy--our main level heater was not working. After some reading of the manual, some tinkering with the starter, a phone-call to our "handyman" in Des Moines, and a Herculean effort not to swear, we found a repairman willing to come over and fix it. In a blizzard. On Christmas morning. And he only charged us time and a half! We consider it something of a Christmas miracle.

All of our little monkeys had a wonderful day. Though their lists to Santa were not all checked off 100 per cent accurately, every one of them told me independently at some point in the day that this was the best Christmas ever. I guess Santa really does know best. Isaac even said, "Don't worry Dad. I remember the true meaning of Christmas."

Here are a few pictures of our holiday week:

Here is the gang dressed in Christmas Sunday best. They are a good-looking crowd if I do say so myself.

Here is part of the cast of the annual "Talbot Family Christmas Pageant." Anna insisted she wanted to be the angel so I was Mary yet again. It's getting kind of hard to pull off the role in my 30s.

I got a sewing machine for Christmas this year, but I opened it early so I could make the kids some Christmas pajamas.

They were all impressed.

They are never that impressed when my mom or mother-in-law do the sewing. Of course, it took me an entire day to do what either of their grandmas could have cranked out in an hour. I guess the key to impressing your children is low expectations.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have had a wonderful day, and don't worry, I remember the true meaning of Christmas too.