Team Berg!: Christmas

The Berg Boys love Christmas. In fact, as they get older they seem to love it more and more. I think the enthusiasm of the older ones who have experienced a few Christmases already rubs off on the younger ones and we end up with mass happiness all around.

Our first night in California we helped set up the Christmas Tree. Adam was quite infatuated with grandma's star because we have yet to get one for our tree.

Uncle Joseph and his helper.

James was very excited about helping grandma sort through the ornament box.

David was excited to see how many ornaments he could injure before someone stopped him.

Caleb was pensive about the whole thing. It had been a long drive.

James showing grandma a pretty ornament.

He is so cute.

Here our tree is, all set up with presents and stockings, after the boys had gone to bed. It looks quite wonderful, if I do say so myself.

When the older two woke up in the morning we made them wait for everyone else to come out before we opened gifts. It was quite painful for them to wait but they were good sports about the whole thing.

Caleb and his patient smile.

Adam and his impatient grimace.

James was sleeping soundly and would have kept sleeping until ten but we couldn't do Christmas without him and had to wake him up.

We broke open the tin house full of chocolates while we waited for everyone else in the house to gather around the tree.

David had his fill of chocolates and then some.

James began to wake up a little after he realized what was going on. He was still pretty sleepy though.

Having Christmas with grandparents means there is always someone to help you open your presents. Grandpa was a very attentive audience.

As was grandma.

James looks a little worried here but don't fret. He was still trying to wake up.

There he is! Ready to play with his new magnetic tow truck.

Adam was very confused by his new sheets. He knew they weren't something on his list for Santa and couldn't figure out how they qualified as a present. We had a little lesson on the fact that everyone gets "sheets" for Christmas sometimes and it's best to just smile and be grateful for every present. I'm not quite sure if the lesson sunk in.

However, he was much more energized once he saw the walkie-talkies he and his three brothers got.

James turned into a very good gift opener.

David was happy with his own gifts and was quite curious about everyone else's gifts as well.

And then he found some more chocolates. We were cleaning up opened chocolates for days.

Grandpa Logan and Grandma Cheryl got us a new DVD player and lots of DVDs for Christmas. Caleb and James opened the DVD player.

And Adam and David opened some of the DVDs.

They were pretty stoked about the whole thing.

This was Adam's first year buying presents for his brothers. They had a Secret Santa Shop at his school and he picked out some really cool things for his them.

Adam helped wrap the gifts he bought and was so excited to hand them out in the morning.

David was especially fond of the little ninjas.

The boys looked in their stockings last (I swear stockings were more important to me when I was a kid) and found these awesome finger flashlights. They were very popular for quite a while.

He's looking a little dazed disco here. Poor thing.

We had a mini Christmas a few days later when more of the Elkins clan arrived. David was a little confused as to why Grandma was just holding her present when she should so obviously be opening it and decided to give her a hand.