Christmas Morning with the grandparents

The morning after Julenissen is Santa's turn to make a splash. The girls slept in their new pajamas all night in preparation for this footage. With Santa, it's not just presents this morning but the first day of 12 with stocking stuffers as well. We'll finish all our holiday gift giving on January 6 when the wise men come for Epiphany. On that final morning we will exchange one last round of big presents to each other.

Julenissen makes a visit (Parts 1 thru 4)

Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4 are fun, too.

How much gift opening can you handle? This is part one of four for Christmas Eve. Traditionally, the McDougall family is visited by Julenissen on the day before Christmas. You'll see in the video where the little troll tracked in some dirt on his shoes and ate the rice pudding and glog that the girls left before the evening church service.

Christmas is not celebrated and over in just one day in our family so stay tuned for 12 more days of gifts, stockings and giving as we roll into the new year.

Christmas Eve Service

The Christmas eve service in Udhailiyah was a candle light carol singing extravaganza with friends and family in the gym at the Udhailiyah School. The girls were so good they even got to participate in the service by asking the question on the microphone: "Why do we light four candles?" The rest of the McDougall adults answered by lighting the candles on the wreath up on the altar. Finally, we capped the public part of our evening with a chili feed over at the Ladies recreation center on camp.

Lillejulaften means Christmas Eve Eve

Our Christmas family celebrating started this year with a party at Mor Mor and Mor Far's in Udhailiyah.

Let's dance!

Who knew how much fun the Little Einsteins plug and play insert could be without the book attached? Saskia just loves that thing. Anika gets in on the act as well and shows off some of her newly acquired ballet moves. This is the priceless stuff that parents faun over and talk about for days.

Christmas sprucing at home

Decorating at home takes a few days. These vid clips are highlights from the evenings getting our Dhahran house spruced up for the holiday. Kids sure make Christmas fun. No wonder we had to have two! Saskia and Anika are what these times are all about. I can't wait to decorate again next year. So sweet!

Decorating for Christmas with the grandparents

After Thanksgiving we jumped right into getting ready for Christmas. Since we will be spending a lot of time together again in Udhailiyah we all pitched in and brought out a lot of the big items to get Mor Mor and Mor Far's house ready for the end of the month. The best part of the day, however, was after decorating. Sitting around with Mor Far on the guitar and singing carols before bedtime was pretty wonderful.