Saying goodnight to Christmas Day

We have had two days of pure joy but it is almost over for this year. The special glasses decorated with holly and the plates with Santa and his reindeer will be packed away along with the tree and lights and nutcrackers and everything will be hauled back up to the attic by next weekend.

The joy will be close at hand though, thanks to digital photography. We got great shots of everyone in the family and they will be right here for me to look at anytime I like. Chris Brogan is hosting a Holiday Photo Project , so if you would like to join in some fun and possibly win some books and cool stuff, check out his blog entry and post your own cool holiday photos and video.

One of my favorites is of all five of the grandkids opening their stockings this morning. One of the girls looks amazed when she pulled out a long string of gift cards.

Food is a big part of most get-togethers at our house and Christmas is the biggest. Okay, so the Christmas cookies were all eaten before the big day and the ginger cake fell in the middle. You should have seen the pies! Thanks to winning a prize of Dove chocolates from The Dirty Shirt blog, we had two extra-special desserts to share. One was a very large box of graham crackers coated in this scrumptious chocolate. Half were coated with Dove dark chocolate (my favorite) and the other half was thickly coated with their famous milk chocolate. Pure, sweet silky chocolate on the tongue with a crunchy center in both cases. The second box was mixed nuts covered in both milk and dark chocolate. Ummm, these were like bites of heaven. My granddaughters also gave me 2 bags of Dove dark chocolate Promises so I don't have to worry about running out between now and my birthday in February. I guess everyone in the family knows of my addiction to Doves.

But the best part of Christmas for me is seeing the sparkling eyes of happy children and hearing their voices. The video of our youngest grandson discovering his new fire truck comes with flashing lights, sirens and a loudspeaker to drive us nuts with all day. I had to keep reminding him "no running 10-18 in the house!"