A Tampa Kind of Christmas.

After our tractor-time Christmas in Atlanta, we headed down to Tampa to spend some time with my family. We arrived Christmas Eve afternoon and headed to Grandma's house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with my dad's side of the fam. We had a great time and Luke managed to hang in there, despite having had a really long day. Christmas day was a little different this year, because we waited for my brother, Ben, and his wife, Abbi, to arrive around lunch time before starting the present opening extravaganza. Thank God Luke was too young to really understand what was going on, or it would have been torture trying to make him wait hours to dig in. Anyway, here are the few pics that I managed to take during the process.

Unfortunately for Luke we didn't start opening presents until nap time, so he was falling apart before we even opened the first gift. Daddy was feeling great, though.

In tears, opening his first gift.
I think all he really wanted for Christmas this year was a nap.

Silly Daddy trying to cheer up the Stinker.

Ooooooh, what's in here??

Now it was Daddy's turn to open his gifts, and we so wished he hadn't. Ben gave him some hair for Christmas. Phil loved it. I did not.

Ben trying on Phil's hair.

That night my Aunt Kate and her family came over for our annual Christmas dinner with my mom's side of the fam. Luke is a big fan of Aunt Kate, especially when she does fun things like play peekaboo through the screen door.

The next day my best friend, Paige, came over with her 2-year old, Finley, and her new baby girl, Khaki. Luke and Fin have been besties for a while now and were perfectly content to sit on the floor and challenge each other to a snack eating contest.

Poor Fin started shoving the cheerios down her throat once she realized Luke's bigger cookies left her at a disadvantage.


(L to R: Abbi holding 6-day old Khaki, Luke, me, Paige, Finley, and Ben)
Paige and Ben and I grew up together. Paige lived 2 doors down and spent half her life at my house. Now we are all grown up and the second generation will soon outnumber us. So fun!

We had a wonderful Christmas with all of our family and friends. I hope you did, too!