Christmas was great, and I have a lot of pictures.

On Christmas Eve morning, we took the kids and my brother to breakfast.

I’ve discovered that the way to keep a toddler happy in a restaurant is to give him his own drink right off.

When that wears off, letting him walk around and flirt with other patrons works, too, but isn’t as polite.

Next, we headed off to the bookstore to see Santa.

On his own, Clark walked right up to Santa and talked most cordially, but when I set him on his lap, well, he didn’t like that very much. I don’t think he was scared, so much as mad.

Later that night, the girls did their annual wrapping of cousin gifts,

which I don’t particularly like to save ’til the last minute, but this year, it was the best we could do. I was so desperate for time, I had them wrap most of the uncle gifts as well.

Then we hauled off to the in-laws for the annual nativity reading/enactment and an all around good time.

Lastly that evening, the annual “picture-in-front-of-the-tree-in-new-pajamas”.

I don’t have a toddler trick for this one.

I let the two hams pose for more.

Christmas morning was, well, Christmas morning. The novelty this year was that we managed to sleep in ’til after 8.

I couldn’t get Clark to unwrap a gift to save my life this year. He did much better last year as a baby.

So my big knitting project for Christmas…. wasn’t that big at all. I knit three little necklace pouches for the girls MP3 players out of Koigu.

So, with all of that out of the way, I’ve resumed knitting on my handspun, basketweave cable scarf which my brother really wants. I’m feeling horribly guilty for not being willing to give it to him. To ease my conscience, I’ve begun a similar scarf for him with some Donegal Tweed from the stash, but it’s not remotely the same.

As for the sheep… I didn’t end up making any for me, so I still have more sheep to make in the future, and I’ll tell you all generally how to do it, since a number of you have begged and pleaded :-).

Today, I intend to clean and organize my downstairs kitchen/craft area while Nate paints his office. The girls are all plugged into their music/movies on the ipods, so it’s relatively peaceful around here, despite the house being completely trashed.