Willingham Christmas Drumroll

Every family has certain traditions that are MUSTS at the holidays. It has been one of the biggest holiday joys of marriage to partake in two families' customs. Here Connor gets a lesson from Cara about making angel sugar cookies with royal icing.

Cara has saved all the classic vintage toys her boys had when they were little. Connor is famous for spreading them out everywhere. On this day Connor was under the weather. We stayed at home with our little patient while everyone else went to church. It was a snuggly day of watching movies, building towers and playing with toys.

Connor has become the lucky benefactor of a handed-down dollhouse. Kirk's cousin aged out of it and boy oh boy is it a hit. Not only is the actual structure a piece of art, there are more little people and pieces of furniture than we could even place in the doll mansion.

Santa came a little early at Cara and Poppa Ed's house. The push tricycle provided an endless source of entertainment.

Great grandparents were at Cara's house to provide lots of hugs and kisses!

It wouldn't be a Willingham Christmas without a celebration of Evan's birthday 3 days before. Nothing like topping off the holiday gluttony with a massive ice cream or cookie cake. Happy Birthday Evan!

This year I heard someone refer to Carol's tree as "the perfect Christmas tree" - and it is always a thing of beauty. I think it has something to do with the placement of lights and then the way the ornaments are carefully placed with attention to spacial balance and symmetry. This year Carol and I zipped out to run a shopping errand and we weren't 2 minutes from the house before Kirk called to report that "the perfect Christmas tree" had just spontaneously fallen on top of him while he innocently sat on the couch and Connor in her chair. Carol whipped the car right around in an impressive U-turn and we returned to clean up the mess. Of course it was T minus 8 hours before she was due to host the Neighborhood Christmas Party.

Thankfully all was reassembled in time for the Neighborhood Party. Carol and Lucy cohosted the shindig (along with their husbands). Lucy is one of my favorite of the Tanbark neighbors and a faithful blog reader!