Twas the Night Before Christmas

On Christmas Eve we woke up early and headed over to Donna and Charley's house. David's entire family consisting of Aunt Carol, Uncle Dave, cousins Christina and Greg, Christina's boyfriend Ron, and David's brother Brad were all in town for the holiday. Since we had the whole family together for the first time since our wedding 7 1/2 years ago we decided it would be a great time to get family photos done. We hired our good friend, BJ, to take the pictures. We all met at Donna's house around 9:30 and headed up the road to an open desert area in Sycamore Canyon for the photo shoot. After that it was back to the house for some lunch. The guys then took off for a day of golfing at Del Lago. Donna and Carol wanted time to visit with Morgan and offered to watch her so I could run home and finish packing for our trip to San Diego and cleaning for Christmas morning at our house. I was all up for a few hours to myself to get all of that done.

By four o'clock I was back at Donna and Charley's ready to start our Christmas Eve. When I arrived at their house I found Morgan exploring in her mini wheelchair. She has been fascinated all month with the Christmas tree and had asked Grandma to turn it on for her. Grandma being the good "therapist" that she is told Morgan she would turn it on once she went in the room and tagged the tree. While Donna was waiting for Morgan to tag the tree she went about cooking in the kitchen. This is when I walked in and found Morgan quietly sitting by the tree stealing a candy cane off of it.


Morgan had wheeled right over to the tree and spotted the candy canes. She carefully proceeded forward and reached up and pulled one off the tree.

Not aware that I was watching she then proceeded to try to eat the candy cane (with the wrapper still on). That's when she realized she was caught red handed.

Being the good listener that she is Morgan sweetly pulled it out of her mouth and with much regret followed directions and put the candy cane back on the tree.


After that we settled down for an evening of food and fun with the family. We had a great time visiting and catching up with everyone. It started getting late, so we took Morgan in the front room by the tree and gave her her first Christmas gift. It is a family tradition on my side of the family that every Christmas Eve we always get to open one present and it is always new pjs. Morgan was allowed to open two this year: the first was princess pjs with Snow White on them and the second present was Elmo slippers. She loved them!
Morgan and David opening her princess pjs and Elmo slippers.
After getting a bath and putting on her new pjs Morgan and I settled down to read a book before heading home to bed. We read the story "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Morgan was so excited for the next morning to wake up and see what Santa had brought.