We spent Christmas with my family at my grandparents' house in Collinsville, IL...
home of the world's largest catsup (not ketchup) bottle...
...and many life-size nativity scenes.
As tradition dictates, Christmas Eve was appetizer night...
Cousin S.H.A.M. was in charge of quality control...
...and the guys were very helpful as well.
On Christmas day we have a somewhat unique tradition--each person opens all their presents all at once and we go one at a time, youngest to oldest. This year, this process took about four hours...as this was Mike's first Christmas with my family, I don't think he really knew what he was in for, but he waited his turn very patiently.
The Wills, with all their loot...
Meredith geared up to challenge the family to a Wii tournament...
There were even gifts for Baby Davidson...
Mike was super-excited to dig into his gifts when the time (finally) came...new ski gear!
A few of our gift-giving highlights...Mom and Dad surprised us with a new video camera--we in turn surprised them with a webcam...something tells me that these will come in handy very soon. Also, Mike surprised me with season tickets to the San Francisco Ballet's winter/spring season.
Grandpa with his new mug (look closely, it's a picture of him from our wedding)!
Grandma is our family record-keeper--I've been giving her the same journal for more than twenty years!
We were joined by more family in the afternoon, for a grand total of 46 all together. The grandmas supervised a delicious Christmas dinner, followed by more family fellowship.
Cousin Jacki with Eli
Davis and Logan playing with Spike the dinosaur
Mere just had to join in the fun (this has Facebook profile pic written all over it)
There was no shortage of pregnant ladies in the house!
Christmas night, Mere hooked up her new Wii for some bowling and American Idol.
It was the first family Christmas for my cousin Brian's wife, Molly, as well...we're glad she felt comfortable sharing her American Idol talents with us...
Brian had to take a turn as well...
as did Emily and Audrey
Mike convinced Adam and Uncle Marty to join him for "Bohemian Rhapsody"
(somehow Logan slept through all of this)
In the end, Uncle Matt was the only one who even came close to beating Molly's high score
To keep the grandmas from doing too much work, we all pitched in to help out with meals. Friday night my parents, Mike and I were responsible for dinner--Mom made her famous marinara sauce and we helped with everything else.
After dinner, we met up with our friends Keith & Kara who live in Dallas (Christmasing with Kara's family in nearby Edwardsville) for a drink.
On Saturday afternoon (with bellies full of Brian and Molly's yummy green chile stew) the four of us returned home to Decatur. On Sunday we hosted brunch with Grandad and Cindy and the rest of the McCullough clan. We had lots of fun with Mom and Dad before returning to SF on New Year's Eve morning.
Oh, and, Mike was so relieved that Baxter still remembered him
All in all, a very merry Christmas indeed!
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