The Real McCoys: Christmas

We had a very enjoyable week long celebration of Christmas here in the McCoy family. For her first one, Kate made out pretty well. We might have to tell her at some point that Christmas doesn't usually last over a week! Kevin's parents made the trek up here to Syracuse to have our "McCoy" Christmas the weekend before Christmas. We had had a foot of snow on the ground until the day before they arrived, when the temperature shot up to 52 degrees and it rained! We still managed to have a great visit and had a very successful "first" Christmas for Kate.

Just hanging out once everyone arrived:

We went bowling, which seems to becoming a tradition with the McCoy family!

Yay for jeggings and Kate's first trip to the bowling alley!

Our beautiful tree, instead of me decorating by myself this year, we had a family evening and decorated together. I am looking forward to starting that tradition with Kate. All of our ornaments are mine from growing up, my parents still give us each a new ornament every year. There's something so sentimental about Christmas ornaments, I can remember when and who most of mine are from. I was thrilled that my mom, sister and Kevin's grandmother all gave Kate an ornament this year so she can start her own collection!

Getting ready to unwrap presents

The dogs got some gifts too!

Doesn't really get the opening present thing

Yay! a mirror for the car

I got a new lense for my camera .. trying it out on Kevin and Kristin:

We made sure to get some family photos too.

Kevin worked on Christmas Eve, but Kate and I met him out at a bar for a couple of drinks and then we had leftovers from McCoy Christmas dinner back at our house with Murphy.

Christmas day we had a quiet day at home, we actually spent a good chunk of time addressing our Christmas cards, packing and getting ready to drive home. We had Christmas dinner with some of the ortho residents and families.

We actually decided to go ahead and take advantage of the fact that Kevin didn't have any inpatients and therefore didn't need to round on Thursday and Friday and drove home Christmas night. We left around 9:30 after packing the car, and Kevin was a trooper and drove the whole way! We didn't know whether it would be a disaster or not, but it worked out very well. Kate slept the entire way, and it really saved us time to not have to stop and feed her.

Snuggling with Bushia the next morning!

We celebrated "Christmas Eve" and "Christmas morning" with my immediate family, Friday into Saturday. We traditionally decorate our tree on Christmas Eve, and then play Cranium with my siblings. I'm glad we could continue that tradition even though it wasn't really Christmas Eve.

Saturday, we had a very busy day .. opening stockings with my family, going to the rehearsal for Kylee and Andy's wedding, going to Yerkes Christmas with my dad's extended family and then Filliben Christmas with Kevin's extended family.

Yerkes Christmas:

Waiting for Aunt Tacie's hats