Christmas Eve crazies

.Christmas Eve dawned fairly early, with a pounce and a holler, "IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!"   Brant opened his final drawer on the Advent Train and promptly started asking to open a present.  We've allowed him to open gifts from Aunts and Uncles, as well as other gifts that might have been sent to him, on Christmas Eve, because it actually gets overwhelming on Christmas morning.  But...he has to wait until the evening, and trust me, to him, it seemed like FOREVER!

So, we set out to keep him busy!  We started by playing Santa for our neighbors.  We loaded Brant's wagon up with Brant and the baskets for our neighbors...and off we went.  While he was not the happiest to be going along (he wanted to go to Grandma's) we wanted him to know that Christmas was about giving too.

After delivering presents, we fed our feathered friends.  We've been wanting to make bird feeders out of pine cones and peanut butter and I decided...today was the day!  It lasted all of 10 minutes, but we've enjoyed watching the birds eat from them!

Brant had fun making this, he jammed the cones down in the bucket of birdseed...who wouldn't have fun doing that!

Our new feeder and pine cones...I think it looks like a cuckoo clock!

A quick nap, some playtime at Grandma's, dinner and a bath, the family settled to open some gifts!  Brant had great fun seeing what was sent from Japan and Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim.  And this year, the Joyce Family sent him some gifts as well!  

Sitting under the Christmas tree, almost forgotten, was Brant's bag of reindeer food!   We ran outside to sprinkle it around and Brant really did sprinkle it.  A little by the flag pole, in the ditch, by the flower bed, in the bird bath, by the satellite dish and around Mickey.  Wherever the reindeer landed, they would have a 

snack!

A quick pic with Mommy before spreading the food

                                       

He was running so fast we barely got photos

Thinking where to spread it next

Another pic with Mickey.  Do you remember the first one?  

We didn't go as all out with our lights this year...I don't know where the time went!

Having  opened the gifts, we all claimed a spot in the living room (Brant in his new chair) and watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

Presents from Carol and Jim, the dog is named "Littley" and moves like a real dog.
Don't know why B looks sad, just caught the photo when he wasn't smiling!

Trying out the new chair...as I took the picture he was saying, "Look my pirate ship jammies are in the ocean!"
The chair has an ocean print.

Fixing milk and cookies...he cut out and decorated them by himself

Putting out Santa's magic key

Soon Brant was getting dozey, so we put out Santa's magic key, milk and cookies.  Climbing into my lap, Brant fell asleep, with "visions of sugar plums dancing in his head"