Christmas Day #1: Orlando

Ricky opening a present on Christmas Eve Eve

Kenneth and Kristine enjoying some Chinese Food

Yay! Horton Hears a Who.. and the stuffed Horton Too!

Someone was excited...

Mmmmm.. Chinese food!

So we decided that one day of Christmas just wasn't enough so we decided to extend it over the course of three days. This meant that Tuesday December 23rd was the first day of our Christmas this year. 

Tuesday, Ricky, myself, Kenneth and Kristine decided to have our version of a Christmas Story Christmas. We went out to Panda Express and got our chinese takeout and sang Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra Ra.. all the way home. Then we exchanged all but one gift each since we didn't want to have to lug all of our gifts from our house, to St. Pete and then right back to our house. The gifts were plenty and quite honestly we had some of the most creative wrapping jobs I have seen in awhile. For example, Kenneth decided he was going to hide one of Kristine's DVDs in a book like they do in the movies (open the book and there is a hole cut out for a gun or something to go in). I don't think he anticipated how hard cutting that hole was going to be, but needless to say, he managed to make it work. The best part was when Kristine opened the book and was trying to figure out how she could act excited over the gardening book she thought she had received. It was classic. The other popular wrapping job this year was the gift within a gift. I think that made more than one appearance. 

Ricky did an excellent job with my gifts this year. One of the gifts I had to open at my parents house, which was the best (will discuss in a future blog). The gift I opened on Tuesday was a small statuette of Mickey Mouse that looks as though it was drenched in paint. Several years ago Disney had local artists and companies sponsor these 5 foot Mickey statues. They decorated them based on their own theme and they were on display in a traveling exhibit for quite awhile. The little statuette I got was a replica of one of those pieces. It was so great. I have it sitting next to my wedding precious moments on our bookshelf. 

Over all, our first day of Christmas was very successful. The creativity never ceases to amaze me and yet the classics never get old. Only 2 days of Christmas left.