Christmas time was here...

...magic filled the air.

My photo journalism skills are pretty raw.  Organic, if you will.  Grainy like a loaf of bread from Whole Foods.

Oliver has commandeered my camera, taking pictures of calendars, Legos, close-ups of Winnie, his own missing teeth.  Document-worthy subject matter.  Between that fact and my natural spontaneity, I turn to my iPhone 4, and receive a nomination for worst picture of the year. 

Being hardly a queen of the kitchen (though Andrew is King of the Kitchen.  Hmmm..I guess he married a peasant), my time spent preparing meals/treats is usually flustered, so including the kids in Christmas baking is an act of love.  Cut-outs went pretty good this year though.  The cookies went good.  With milk, coffee, morning snack, afternoon tea.

Celebrating on Christmas Eve at Nana and Papa's.

Here's where it gets sad.  My house has never been as pretty at Christmas as it was this year...and this is all I have to show for it.  Next year you're all invited over and we'll skip the pictures.  Clearly not the best quality (or not so clearly, to be more technical).

The prettiest tree in the history of our little family.  (Kindly ignore the finger coverage in the upper left corner...)

These two.  Simpatico.

I hope your Christmas was filled with joy and wonder at the birth of Christ.  I regret that our Advent season felt slightly rushed and out of focus.  I had more time to reflect on Jesus' birth post-holiday than before/during.  Although we probably had things about right if you compared our activity/frame of mind to that of the city of Bethlehem during the census- hurried, frustrated, full, distracted- there wasn't a lot of stillness.  We've resolved to make Christmas 2015 more peaceful and Christ-filled.  Along with the rest of this new year.