Christmas with the Brasfields

We kicked off our Christmas celebrating with the Brasfields on Sunday in Jackson, TN. It was a crazy fun day with aunts, uncles and cousins everywhere...18 adults and 10 kids (ages 5 and younger) to be exact! We started with Christmas dinner that had turkey, ham and all the fixings. We actually had 3 hams to choose from...a smoked ham (made by Jeff), a barbecued ham (made by Will) and then the traditional Honeybaked ham. There were differing opinions on who's ham was the best, but I thought all were super yummy. I so wish I'd gotten a picture of everyone eating...Nana (Russ' aunt) had tables set up everywhere and everything was decorated so pretty!

Yes, we travel with our own toys...just in case!

Love this ball!

Standing up...isn't my outfit cute?!

Our attempt to get all the kids together for a picture.

8 kids out of 10 isn't bad! Of course none
of them are looking at the camera!

After lunch, we exchanged gifts. This brought back so many memories since the kids were so anxious to open presents, just like I remember being also as a kid. The rule was we open gifts after everyone is done eating...that's so hard for little ones to understand!! They were ready after they finished eating and some didn't eat much at all because they thought they'd get to open presents sooner. Ha!

Since there are so many cousins, we drew names earlier so we all just buy for one kid. Tyler gave Melissa and Doug puzzles to Baker (who just turned one) and Mitch (who is almost 4) gave Tyler the Little People airplane. He also got books and clothes from great aunts and uncles. It was super fun chaos and Tyler took a nap in his carseat for over an hour after he opened his gifts.

Tyler loves tissue paper!

Checking out his new books!

Ready for the next one...

Was more interested in the bow!

Helping Mommy with the paper.

Yay for Little People!!

New bear from Aunt Rita

The adults always participate in a "Dirty Santa" gift exchange. There is one for the guys and one for the girls and we each buy a $30-40 gift. Uncle Kenneth loves to change the rules every year, so that is fun and chaotic, too. This year I got an awesome necklace and Russ got a shopvac. We were both happy!

After gifts, we played outside since it was such a nice day! We all came home exhausted, but it was so much fun making these memories with Tyler and Russ' family!

Playing...he LOVED this plastic snake!

Pop with Tyler and Erick...his youngest "grandkids".
I love this picture!