Sunday, December 27, 2009

A Homemade Christmas

Jeff's family does a sibling gift exchange with one of their siblings. This year it was Jeff and Bryan's turn to exchange gifts with each other. If you remember, last year was "An Infomercial Christmas." This year, it was decided to have "A Homemade Christmas." We are thinking of making a tradition out of the themed gifts.

Christmas Eve we spent the day making gingerbread houses. Please notice Bryan in the picture below.
Ben and Austen
Tana, Dirk and Mary
Our gingerbread house only lasted about 20 minutes before it crumbled.

After a delicious dinner, we had Christmas Tea and Recital. Another fun Excell tradition. Ben sang while Tana played the piano. Austen said the first Article of Faith. I wish I would have recorded it. It was adorable.
Mary played the piano while Bryan played the guitar.
David recited the poem, "The Touch of the Master's Hand."
Mary threw us a little surprise with a very skilled hula dance.
I played the piano while Jeff juggled. We didn't get a picture, though. Since we all performed, we got to drink Wassail out of teacups!
Now you might notice Jeff is looking a little bit tired on Christmas morning. That's because another tradition is to stay up until 3:00 in the morning on Christmas Eve to play Super Nintendo games.
This is Jeff opening my gift to him. I got him Windows7...which ended up crashing his computer. Merry Christmas, Jeff...
Ben, Tana and Dirk opening up one of their gifts.
Ah! And here's our homemade gift to Bryan. We made him a computer bag. Yes, you can click on the picture to make it bigger and admire our sewing skills.
And Bryan gave Jeff a scarf (I forgot to take a picture of it) and then he made aprons for me and Mary. You can also click on this one, but please only look at the apron and Mary. I hadn't showered yet when this picture was taken.
It was a fun first Christmas with the Excell side. I can't wait to see what next year's theme will be.

6 comments:

jlthomas said...

Bryan really made those aprons, I'm impressed! The computer bag turned out great! I never knew you guys could sew. looked like you had a fun Christmas, Merry late Christmas from us!

Kim said...

Maybe you and Jeff should take lessons from Mary on how to put together a great gingerbread house. Mary looks so cute in that photo.

Sarah, the black and white shirt looks so cute on you.

I loved the aprons and the computer bag was awesome. Is he really going to use it?

There is one tradition that I'm thinking is a bit crazy and that is the staying up until the wee hours of the morning playing Nintendo. What does Nintendo have to do with Christmas? Crazy boys!!

Annalies said...

Looks like it was a fun Christmas at the Excell household. The aprons look cute on you guys!... Your gingerbread house looks good as well, even though it was a short lived success. Merry Christmas...a little late!

Rebecca said...

How did you know how to sew a computer bag? I'm impressed!

Has Bryan ever thought about trying out for America's Next Top Model?

Laura said...

What a fun time. I wish I could have been to all of it. But we couldn't come down until you went to work! JK I love all the pictures you took.

It was great to see you guys.

Unknown said...

Great pictures Sarah... I love our aprons! It was a fun Christmas.