Christmas at the Duke's

We had a great Christmas this year. It's always fun when you have little kids that still believe in Santa. Erin is starting to ask a lot of questions about Santa, like how does he know we live in a new house? She was very afraid that Santa would deliver her presents to the wrong house. Also, we don't have a fireplace in the new house, but we had one in the old house, so how would Santa get down the chimney if we didn't have one? It was non-stop questions. I wonder if she will still believe in Santa next year. Here is the food Erin left for Santa, with broccoli for the reindeer. She is always very concerned that Santa get a good snack at our house. Maybe she thinks he will leave more presents if he is well fed. The snack this year was peppermint bark (white and dark chocolate with candy cane pieces) and chocolate milk. It was a lot of fun decorating the new house and Christmas tree. Here is how the outside of the house turned out.

And the Christmas tree...

MaMaw (Gary's mom) loves to sew and do all kinds of crafts, especially for Christmas. Notice the tree skirt. MaMaw made that using strips of material from old table cloths and other leftovers from Christmas projects past.

Every year she makes Christmas shirts for all the women to wear to their annual day after Thanksgiving shopping spree. They usually hit all the door busters that start at 4:00 am. I always manage to find a reason not to participate. Shopping at 4:00 am is not my cup of tea. But here is this year's Christmas shopping shirt.

MaMaw, sewer extraordinaire also made beautiful bath robes for all four of us. Here are Gary and the kids in their Christmas bathrobes.

The kids had just taken a bath when I got this picture. Notice that Garrett's and Daddy's bathrobes match.