I always loved Christmas Eve best...

I always loved Christmas Eve the more than the actual day.  Usually it is when we decorate the tree, finish wrapping presents, watch a movie and put cookies out for Santa.  I think the anticipation of Christmas morning can be more enjoyable than the actual gift-unwrapping itself.  That was definitely true this year.  Though, mostly because we had both days all wrapped up in one since my mom has to work all Christmas day so we decided to unwrap gifts tonight after dinner.

I have found lately that it is cheaper to travel on the actual holiday, but I made sure to get back to Allentown before Christmas Eve. 

We had a special dinner out after getting picked up at the airport at L'angolo in South Philly last night.  It was so good to have real Italian food again.

This morning we went out for breakfast at Denny's (we won't talk about the blatantly bigoted service there...). 

We braved the mall for last-minute shopping and gift buying.   My mom and I used every single Macy's coupon we had while Ryan and Anuj bought out the men's department.

We tried (and failed) to put Avinash in his new Santa suit.  We only searched everywhere for one actually in his size.  He ended up in his red-striped PJs with an elfish hoodie.

It still looked pretty good though!!

Avi helped Ryan wrap all of my gifts which he mailed here to my house.  He resisted being wrapped himself however.

Mom took me for a few more maternity clothes and then we went grocery shopping for dinner tomorrow. 

We all posed for family photos in front of the tree.  Avinash wanted to use the 'cheese' too and kept snatching the camera off the ledge while we were waiting for the self-timer.  Hopefully we got at least one usable photo.  I think my favorite is the one where Avi is covering his face with his hands, Ryan's squinting, Anuj's eyes are closed and I'm only half sitting yet.

My mom gave him his own digital camera and he set up on the ledge and tried to get us all to sit down for a picture again.  'Cheese!'

We had a great Indian food for dinner after that, with homemade paneer and everything.  I'm still feeling stuffed and barely able to move after all the food.

We watched old-school claymation holiday classics all night.

We sat down under the tree to open presents after that.  Avinash was acting so precious after opening one gift that I asked my Dad to set up the video too.  I think waiting to open the presents while he did that was pure torture on Avinash.  He was dancing up and down in so much anticipation.  He grabbed as many gifts as he could from under the tree and started giving them to my mom. 

Anuj loved taunting Avinash over his gifts.  Avinash started shouting 'mine!' for everything.  He was so adorable.  He would shout 'mio!', grab the gift, tear off the paper and then exclaim 'wow' for everything. 

For the most part he gave the gifts to the person we told him to but would always help opening up the wrapping paper. 

I was blown away by my gifts this year, especially my new wicker picnic set!!  It is huge and gorgeous.  Luckily we bought Ryan a new Lacoste jacket this morning.  I framed a set of Ramayan prints for my parents.  My mom got back the watch she left in Houston last time she was here, ha!  Ryan followed my lead and wrapped up a pair of her glasses for her.  We got Anuj a Toy Story 3 DVD just because of the deep emotional connection he's always had with his toys.

He kept looking for more and more presents to open, shouting nen! and pointing under the tree.

He and Anuj broke his new remote-controlled car within minutes.  He loved crawling in and out of his new elmo tent.  And of course, at the end of it he found my old nearly-30 year old baby computer and started playing with it under the tree. 

Hope you all have a Merrry Christmas Eve too!!