Whew, I've had a lot of catching up to do, huh? I realize it is January 16 (only 4 more months until my birthday! Oh, and happy 4th birthday to my sweet nephew JR!!), and I am STILL finishing Christmas posts . . .but I must finish them before I move on to my "usual everyday ranting and raving and showing off my beautiful children" posts. So let's wrap it up, Jeri Anne.
Anyway, I think the song says it perfectly -- Christmas is truly the most wonderful time of the year. Who doesn't love twinkly lights and warm, cinnamony smells in the kitchen and the baby Jesus and family togetherness? Only a Grinch I suppose, and even he warms up at the end. In my world Christmas is a season that begins the day after Thanksgiving and ends whenever I get around to taking the tree down. Oh, the ginormous tree that took up 3/4 of the den . . . it is now taking up 3/4 of the outside stairwell propped up against our neighbor's door. They finally returned home from South Africa yesterday and Clint had to inform them that they cannot open their door to the back stairwell because there is a 2 ton Christmas tree that will fall in on them. I guess we could prop it against our door OR take the dang thing to a dump, but I digress. Anywho, back to the final Christmas post: The Nixon Family Christmas.
Growing up in my parents' house in Kendrick -- this is what my dad calls our community even though I think there is no such thing -- Bobby and I woke up at like 3:00AM and made everyone else drag themselves out of bed to see what molded plastic million-piece nonsense Santa had brought us that we would string all over the house for everyone to step on. Then mom would make some sort of breakfast -- sausage and homemade biscuits or maybe pancakes with syrup and, get this, peanut butter (strange, but we love it) -- and then we'd all find a place to pile up and get nice and cozy and go back to sleep. Only to wake up and eat the most amazing turkey and dressing in the whole world. And of course the entire month prior was filled with watching It's a Wonderful Life, peanut butter and crackers dipped in white chocolate, Santa Claus sweaters, classroom parties and drawing a number for a present, school-made ornaments on the tree, and a ridiculously crowded Belk's and JCPenny. And family. Finally making time to see family that we hadn't seen all year and then remembering that we really did like those people and should remember to get together more often. Mmmmm, nostalgia.
Okay, back to 2010 . . . sorry I'm getting off-topic. It's early Sunday morning, and Mimi woke me up at 6:00 to go potty -- that's right. Potty. Girlfriend is potty-trained -- even at night. But that's a whole other post I'll get to later. Anyway, so I'm sitting in my kitchen since I couldn't go back to sleep and am drinking coffee, warming up by the fire, and smelling the cinnamon rolls baking in the oven . . . and, longest run-on sentence ever . . . and downloading all these photos and thinking about the excitement surrounding pulling out all the boxes of Christmas ornaments as a child -- I still remember the way that box smelled like cardboard and cinnamon -- is really making me all warm and fuzzy . . . sooooo . . .
. . . now we have our Nixon Christmas at my sister's house in Nashville. Well, actually a 'burb called Brentwood, and I LOVE being at her house. She has done a great job of making her home look all fancy and such, but it is very, very comfortable and actually fits our ginormous family -- I guess that's what we get when my parents decide to have four kids and then we all decide to have more babies. I love a ginormous fam, by the way. So everyone was able to make it except Bobby's family in Cali, who we missed dearly -- maybe I should photoshop them into some pics . . .
Bebe, Coco, Amos, and baby Mackaroni.
I think Mack has some magnets in those fat cheeks of his that just draw people in. No one can seem to stop kissing him.
And we did a lot of this: jommers and Phineas and Ferb. Here we have Lainee-Luckett, Anderson, Nicholas, and Meemers. And, yes, the girlies do have matching jommers . . . and it wasn't even planned. They just both came down the stairs with them on before bedtime. 
I love a big breakfast, and Amos knows how to deliver.
One morning she did a waffle bar with all the fixins -- fruit, nuts, and even chocolate chips. She makes me look so bad as a mom. If Mimi ever has a slumber party, I'll probably just leave a box of Pop-Tarts on the counter and go back to bed. 
And of course it was a hit! (Can you see all the snow out the windows? What a nice treat!)
Over Christmas Mack turned four months old (can you believe it?), and I decided it was time for rice cereal -- wahoo! And did he love it?
Oh my word, like a catfish loves a dirty lake! (I just made that one up -- terrible, I know). I cannot shovel the food in fast enough. Bubber is a baby food-eating machine . . . it's what keeps those cheeks so fat.
And Mimi also learned a fun trick while at my sister's house -- a front roll! She couldn't let Mack steal the spotlight, so in the middle of the den she just stood on her head and flipped over. We had worked on this at Little Gym forever ago, but I guess she was finally ready.
The hard-working men of the family. More alike than they'll ever care to admit :).
Of course there had to be more presents. Mack loved all of them . . . and Mimi loves that she gets twice as many toys to play with now because of him. 
Oh, and what's that? Is that what I think it is? Why, yes, it's JESSIE! Woohoo, Toy Story!
Mimi squeezed her Jessie all weekend.
I just squeezed her.
And the toy of the year for our family was Dance Central on Kinect. Oh my goodness -- even Poppaw and Grumpy (Coco and Nick's other granddad -- how fun is the name Grumpy?) did some back-up dancing that I would kill to have on video. If you've ever seen us at a wedding, you would know that the Nixons have moves. While they might not always be very good moves, at least we know how to "dance like no one's watching." Luckily, the grandchildren also know how to shake it, and I'm so glad that they aren't scared.
These two girls really had to practice their moves on Dance Central . . . because they were going to need them for when Amy and I took them to . . .
the Usher concert! Oh yes we did. I'm still in shock myself. We heard the advertisement on the radio a couple of days after Christmas, and it was all the girls could talk about. We came home from shopping that afternoon, and they promptly marched themselves upstairs to get ready for the show. What?! We didn't tell them we were going. We didn't have tickets. But they were determined, so why not? And what a way to wrap up the holiday -- Christmas and Usher. I think the two go hand in hand.
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