I love the Theme Thursday today – Holiday Aftermath. After the past few days of trying to put our little house and family back together since coming home -  the term aftermath seems especially appropriate.

But, as I was searching for a photo, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the folders upon folders of photos and stories that I have wanted to post and have just not been able to get to.

And I can’t really do the aftermath, without showing all the fun that led up to our Christmas, so I figure if I just throw ‘em all up here and do a little Christmas recap – maybe I can get over it all and safely tuck Christmas 2008 away.

So we found out that decorating gingerbread houses is much more fun than eating it. Either we all don’t really care for gingerbread that much, or the kit that I actually bought last year wasn’t really that good – one year later. At any rate, we did get one built this year…

We also continued the tradition of our Nutcracker date. This year Addie and Daddy joined us as well.

Emma was riveted, all eyes on the stage, as she is every year. Addie was interested for the first act, but she kind of fizzled by the second half. And Daddy, it turns out, was doing a little reading up on the Nutcracker story on his iPhone. I thought that he was checking his email – lucky for him he just was trying to figure out the storyline.

And of course both girls had to have a Clara tiara before we left. Two little Sugarplums in the making…

We did two trees again this year. We have these two giant windows, one in the living room and one in the dining room – both facing different streets. And we have a fake tree, but I looove having a real tree as well. So we had two. This one is the real tree with all the handmade ornaments, including a few antique ones, like the one I created in preschool!

Elfie landed on the fake tree one morning. And if you didn’t do Elf on the Shelf this year, Go. Buy. It. Now! It is genius. I only wish he could stick around all year long to keep his watchful (albeit a little creepy!) eye on the girls.

Christmas Eve was the culmination of all of Em’s hard work. Lots of long practices and rehearsals, but she made her angelic debut and did beautifully! The Christmas Eve pageant at the church was really pretty cool and it was fun to see it all come together.

Then we hurried home to prepare for Santa. Emma was ready to go to bed the minute we got home from 4pm mass, so it was barely 6pm! But they stuck it out through a quick dinner and bath. Hung their stockings and put out some milk and cookies for Santa. Oops…Santa probably abides by the 5 second rule, right? Do you think Elfie will tell Santa that his cookie slid off of the plate and onto the floor?

After the munchkins were in bed…we wrapped our fool heads off and assembled toys sat and watched the fire and waited for Santa to visit…

He came. And left behind a few goodies. This was only half of the living room the next morning…

A favorite of Em’s – the Nutcracker pop-up book….

And a favorite of Ad’s – her very own Trunki. Which she used the next day on our trip to Michigan…

And Santa brought Barbies and strollers and kitties too – but nothing compared to what Nena, Bill and Uncle Jeff got the girls…

I have some pretty funny video of the Barbie Jeep unveiling. I’ll have to upload it. Proof that neither of them will get keys to a real vehicle for many, MANY years!

I could continue…but I think I’ll stop here. The first of our four Christmases. We had about three others while we were home in Michigan and a few dozen more photos to accompany them. But for now I really need to go finish tending to the aftermath.  And packing up a few boxes of Christmas decorations.