Christmas party

We had so much fun.  I loved having all of the kids running around in my house.  There were 16 of them here with their families.  There were kids in the house, on the lanai doing crafts, in the backyard playing soccer, and on the swing set.  It was great.  There was a ton of food, including a punch fountain, and a chocolate fountain (the biggest hit with the kids and adults).  

Erin's piano teacher, Ms. Linda, sat at our piano playing Christmas songs for several minutes before Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived.  In the minutes before Santa arrived she and Sean started playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" together, and everyone (kids and parents) were singing along.  We had gathered everyone in the front room to sing Christmas songs while Ms. Linda played the piano.  Then all of the sudden the front door opened, and in walked Santa and Mrs. Claus.  The kids all froze until they realized who it was standing at the front door.  He came in and walked over to Erin.

Then all of the kids started gathering around him as he read their names out of his book of "naughty and nice". They all wanted to see if their names were on the nice list.  Afterwards he pulled out a gift for each of the kids, and after they had all been handed out they all opened them at once.  It was awesome to watch the smiles on the faces.

Santa spent one on one time with each of the children, took pictures with families, and even my baby brother Tony got a picture with the two of them.  He asked Mrs. Claus for her phone number, and Santa pointed at him and told him that he had to wait until after Christmas!

Each child left with a bag of reindeer food, a gift from Santa, a goodie bag with cookies and chocolate, and a full belly.  I'm sure they were all tired, too.  There was a lot of playing going on at the Andrews/Kowalski residence today.