Christmas Eve celebrations

We always start off our Christmas Eve celebrations with Christmas lunch and presents at the Ellis house. There are A LOT of us and it's always a lot of fun. We always eat lunch then do presents and this year John and Elizabeth could hardly wait to rip open their presents. They are waiting very patiently (NOT!) for the go-ahead!

Memaw and Papaw got to open their present from the whole family first.

Memaw's little helper Becca.

The crowd watches and waits...

Cade in on the helping action.

When Memaw catches a glimpse of the gift, she starts to cry! It's a picture of the ALL her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids!

Cade and Becca checking it out.

And identifying who is who!

Then finally it was presents time!

Mass chaos as everybody opens!

After lunch at the Ellis house, we usually go back to Dublin to have Christmas Eve with Mickey's family. However, this year, when it took Cade and I 2 hours to make it to Mineral Wells and seeing many, many wrecked cars on the way, we decided it was best to stay the night at Nanny Mae's house. Mom and Richard also decided not to try and get back to Weatherford, so we had a little family Christmas celebration at Nans.

Mom and Cade found a little Christmas tree in the closet and put some decorations on it.

Cheesin' with the tree!

This picture of Cade in Nan's bathtub is especially cool to me because there are so many pictures of me, TJ and our cousin Dustin in this tub when we were little.

Cade and MoMo left Santa some milk and a bon-bon made by Memaw Ellis.

Santa found Cade at Nans!

Christmas morning running down the hall.

He came out, took a peek, then went back to get MoMo and Papaw.

Checking out his new toys.

He was reading his book to Nan!

And here's a couple pics of Cade and I on Christmas Eve before we headed to Garner...

Cade and Elmo posing in front of the tree!

And proof that I was there for Christmas this year! Since I'm always behind the camera, sometimes it's like I don't exist! Oh, and I took about 10 pictures trying to get Cade to smile. This is the best it got!