Christmas.

I love Christmas.

I love to get gifts for people.

Christmas morning did not disappoint.

A bucket of army men from Santa for Truman.

The Hopkinson kids all go hammocks for camping.

{remember this post about Santa's elf busy sewing}

Trumans gift from us.

I am not sure if dad was more excited or Truman?

My mom has been working on jean quilts for all my brothers.  She is always looking for jean for the quilt so my cousin and his wife wrapped up an old pair of jeans and gave her - it was great!

Looks like someone is building a house {!}

{We are not literally building it ourselves, but I think we are going to general it ourselves}

My grandma got these darling dish clothes from her oldest daughter that were hand made.

She said she is not going to use them because they are too pretty!

What?

I didn't get any pictures of Bodie and his gifts.  Sad.  From Santa he got some army figurines and from us he got a remote control tractor.

From grandpa to grandma!

morning naps.

We got caught taking a morning nap {with the new Dr. Seuss quilts that grandma Quinn made for Truman and Bodie}.

Still sleeping.

Enoch got this homemade digger for his new sandbox he is getting this spring.

cars for Ira.

More jeans for my mom, she was thrilled!

{already cut to size for the quilts, that is one good sister ... Ilene}!

What a great morning.

After the gift giving we had a huge Christmas breakfast and then enjoyed new games, naps and new toys!

Christmas Eve.

We celebrated Christmas eve tonight with my entire family at Tiffany and Aarons house, it is so much fun to have everyone in town for the holidays.  We decided a few months ago that we wanted to do fondue for Christmas eve dinner.  I was so busy running around making several different cheese fondues that I didn't take pictures - just this one of the kids table.

Hopkinsons have this tradition of standing together in a circle, crossing your arms and pulling these 'poppers' that are filled with a little crown and a prize.

We always do some kind of program on Christmas eve, ever since we were little kids.  We focused this year on sharing our "gifts" {talents} since Heavenly Father shared his must prized "gift" with us, Jesus Christ.

Lauren brought bells and lead us in a bell-playing-sing-a-long!  It was entertaining with all the little kids playing bells.

Enochs face?!

Truman is very serious about his bell playing!

Its kind of become a tradition that my brothers play their trumpets   I think this year they realized that it has been a lot of years since High School Jazz band ... and they aren't as good at just picking up and playing ... with out warming up or practicing a little!

Nate, McKay and Dallin.

Piano talents

Cuteness talent

Poor Ira was on midwest time-zone and so tired.

Our family had a not-so-traditional {or reverent} talent.   Just watch!

Part of what made this so funny was that Truman had practiced and practiced this dance and was so excited to show everyone and then he wouldn't perform.  We had never seen Bodie do the dance before and as soon as the music started he got up there and started jumping away.

Hopkinsons also have another tradition where we all get a "character" from The Nativity, we turn out the lights, and read passages and sing Christmas carols about each of the characters.  When it is your turn you light a candle and put it by your statue and then read your part and leave everyone in the respective song

After this photo we put all the kids to bed.  Addie and Quinn shared Addies twin size bed, Jean was in another twin bed in the room and Enoch and Truman were on the floor.  Anthony, Sharon, Ira and Eliot shared the music room - there was only a twin size blowup in their room so I am not sure who slept on the mattress and who got the floor?!  My grandparents were in the guest bedroom and my parents were in Enochs room.  Me, Gregg, Nathan, Lauren, Dallin and McKay were all down stairs on blowup mattresses in the big family room - I wish I would have taken a picture of that!!!  Tiff and Aaron were in their bedroom and Dallins friend from Ucraine was in the front family room - it was a FULL house!

While we were waiting for the kids to fall asleep we decided to start a new tradition - the siblings did their gift exchange.  We were laughing so hard and had such a fun time giving gifts.  Dallin, Nathan and Gregg all got footed pajamas which was kind of funny!  And then Dallin got me angry bird footed pajamas -random- and oh-so-flattering!!!

After this I went to bed - but I think I might have heard Santa and the reindeer land at the house shortly after!