Christmas Morn at the Carters

The older kids waiting to come upstairs

Graham and Eli coming through the door

Yahoo!!!
My nephew Carter sees Elmo
Hey, It is from Santa!


As you can imagine, Christmas morning in our house can be wild. We have tried various methods over the years in opening the presents. Some have worked and some have just been the worst. We found out that letting everybody tear into them at once was not a good idea. Not only did presents get lost but also gratefulness and sanity. Then no one knew what the other got. We then tried letting each person take a turn opening them and then everybody ohhed and awwed and saw what everyone else got but as our family has grown, that has become more time consuming. In the last couple of years, we have bought the kids each a pretty big present and a couple of smaller ones. But this year, I have been thrift shopping and they ended up with a bunch of smaller ones. Sooo.... finally after it was getting past 2 hours of opening presents we doubled up and let Graham and Eli open at the same time then the twins then the girls and Duane and I. I have to think of something else, especially when the other kids get here. Despite the long 3 hours of opening presents, it was fun. Of course there were those gifts that Santa brought and left on Christmas Eve for the kids to find. We hope you had a joy filled Christmas like we did! There are a lot of pictures so this will take several posts.