Nate was able to take 2 full weeks off for Christmas (which was terrific considering we basically didn't see him the first 3 weeks of December because of work). So we enjoyed every minute we had with him home. We stayed in our pajamas several days, watched a lot of TV, took lots of naps, went swimming, ate really unhealthy food, looked at Christmas lights, played in our newly done playroom in the basement, built a gingerbread train, made cookies for Santa, etc. etc. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did get a few cute ones.
Since I spent most of December painting our basement (more on that later), I never took the kids to see Santa (I know I am a bad mom), so when we went to look at Christmas lights, one of the houses had a Santa outside, so we rushed Karly over to get a picture and tell him what she wanted (a dog and a cat, in case you were wondering).

The Santa house - these people have like 100,000 Christmas lights on their house and they have it synchronized to music on a radio station. It's pretty cool, actually. They give you candy canes too when you stop to watch.
Frakes Family traditional gingerbread building extravaganza (I made 2 extra batches of royal icing that night, as the kits apparently don't include enough for Nate's crazy plans. :)
Christmas morning, Karly came into our room and said "Dad. Mom. I saw a big thing downstairs!" This was the big thing. :)
I had pictures of them opening presents, but they aren't uploading - I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like. :)
My mom and sister Mel came to visit for a couple of days after Christmas, which was so fun! I, of course, did not take a single picture. We went to see that cool house with all that lights and went to a yummy BBQ place for dinner and hung out and talked and laughed. We also made a quick run to the airport on Christmas Eve morning to hang out with my sister Shan and her family while they had a 3 hour layover there. It was so fun to get to see family over the holidays, even if it was just for a few hours!