On the Night Before Christmas,

We gathered at my Momma's house for a feast- which I didn't take a picture of but I sure wish I would have.  My mom and Whitney set it up so beautifully!

And, prepare yourself, there are no pics of Wyatt.  He fell asleep right after dinner and snoozed through the whole party.

Anywho, we then exchanged gifts

Here's Whitney recording the events.

Here's us girls and all of our Toms.

My excitement over getting a pair of these rivaled that of when I was 13 getting my first pair of Dr. Martens.  Yes, it was that awesome.

The kiddos got jammies from Whit and Chris and promptly changed into them.  Nerds.

OP and Chris rocked out on Chris's Christmas present,

while Porter jammed on his.

Here's PG and his golf buddy,

and OP and Adi playing jewel breaker on the iPad,

and Whit and Pipes snuggling in the chair.

We played our traditional "Buckway Ornament Exchange"- very official- game.  It's played like a White Elephant Exchange, but with ornaments.  Duh.

Whit wanted to record everything, so here she is recording herself opening her ornament.

And Chris was the entertainment

Everyone had fun teasing and tormenting the kiddos.  Hey, it's how us Buckways entertain ourselves :)

What ornaments did everyone end up with?

Did I mention that my mom just had finger surgery?  Well, she did.  She still made Christmas dinner, dessert and played all of the games.  What a champ, huh?

Us Merrills then packed up (and had to sneak a big Christmas present home that I had stored at my mom's house and then forgot about) and went home to prepare for Santa.

We all opened our traditional Christmas Eve jammies, then set out letters to Santa, cookies, milk and oatmeal for the Reindeer (of course!).

That night the kiddos went to bed without any complaint and actually stayed in there, warm and snug, for fear of scaring of Santa.

Wyatt even woke up long enough to put on his new jammies and smile for a pic.

Or stare off long enough for me to get a pic.

To be continued...