Chanukah Celebration

As many of you know, Joel's family celebrates Chanukah (Hanukkah) instead of Christmas. Since Chanukah lasts for 8 days, we pick a couple of days during the festival to get together as a family at Joel's parents's house and exchange gifts and eat ourselves into oblivion. On Friday morning we headed out with anticipation to start the festivities. By lunch time everyone had arrived and the party began. It was a full house with 8 adults, 6 kids (under the age of 4), and 4 dogs. We spent the evening visiting and eating, and once the kids were in bed we played games until after midnight. The next morning we woke up to a breakfast of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. By 10:30 we were all dressed and ready to begin opening presents!!!! The present-opening took about 2 and a half hours. When we finished, it looked like a tornado had gone through. We were all scheduled to go home that afternoon, but due to a snow storm we decided to stay another night. There was more eating and visiting and game playing and by the next morning we were able to get out on the roads and make it home. The kids did very little napping while we were at Joel's parents's house, so when we got home they both took really long naps. We were all exhausted, but we had a wonderful time. Can't wait for next years' celebration!!