Christmas with the gang

Today we had our "Hive" Christmas party. "The Hive" is a nickname we have for our bunch of friends - coined by another friend several years ago. There were about 20 of us in all, with Dante and Atti the only kids (so far!!). It got a bit crazy and expensive in terms of pressies a number of years ago and since then we do a "kris kringle" thing which has been working wonderfully. The kids don't take part, though... they're entitled to more than one present, right? As well as presents we had an abundance of food (and meat! We had an esky full of meat!) and ate until we couldn't move.

Originally uploaded by becstarr.

Then Dante played Santa, handing out the presents to each person in turn - it's so great that he can read now! The boys were really excited... Atti knows about presents now.

After presents were distributed, the boys happily hung around in the lounge room playing with whomever was there while we cleaned up and ate dessert. Dante has always been very comfortable with our friends, having known them for 5¾ years, and being a very outgoing boy. I was so pleased with Atticus today. Just in the last week or so he has become so much more outgoing and less shy. It was wonderful to see. He happily sat down on the couch with his godparents, cuddling up with them, and then was just as eager to play with all the adults as his big brother. It was lovely to see. Everyone remarked on it, too. Yay!