December 23rd

Christmas has become quite the product at the Hatch house and we always have lots going on, but this year it seems like we toned it down just a little bit and we had such a wonderful nostalgic Christmas. 

So one of the traditions that my parents have started since us kids have gotten older is that we have a Gingerbread house contest.  And it is such an event every year. We have dividers so no one can cheat, and it is something that we start planning before weeks before Christmas.   Now please know that the Hatch family is extremely competitive and well this year we even had to bring in outside judges, more about that later.  So we decided to try to come up with something for the little kids to do, they made Christmas Trees but well I think that they just made a giant mess and ate a ton of frosting, as you can plainly see.  

Now when our outside judge came (my parents neighbor's) somebody else came too.  Santa made a special visit

 

This was our entry this year, I put Corey in charge of it and of course we ended up with a Fire station.

Nate and Jenn were the winners this year again, but I do have to give them credit it did turn our pretty good.

This was Dani and Tyson's entry can you tell that both of them had recently returned from Mexico?

Then PaPa Mark brought out the Nostalgic present of all presents.  Years ago when we were little my little sister Cedar had a talking Mickey Mouse where you put in the cassette tapes and Mickey reads you the story while you follow along in a book (It was the Disney version of the Teddy Ruxpin).  We have so many memories associated with the toy.  So many times when the power went out dad would light a fire in the fireplace and Mickey would sit on the hearth and we would listen to the stories.  So Dad decided that his grand kids needed to see what this was all about and so he bought one off EBay.  I can honestly say that all of us girls had tears in our eyes as the kids opened up this present.  They loved listening to the stories and I think they were just as mesmerized as we were when we were kids.  The siblings could also repeat most of the stories as they were played as well, there was definitely a lot of reminiscing this night.