An Ellis Christmas Extravaganza

Christmas 2010 was the first time in 5 years the entire Ellis tribe had been in one place!  And the family has GROWN!

The breakdown this year was:

• Adults: 2 parents + 9 kids + 6 spouses = 17 adults
• Grandkids: 5 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 5 = 18 grandkids
• Grandkids ages 5 and under = 13 (!!!)
• Total # of people under 1 roof = 35  

When you are multiplying like we Ellis' are, it was a big blessing to be able to find a roof big enough to cover us all!  We rented out Springhaven Lodge in Springville, UT for the week, where there was more than enough room for everyone.  Even when "Springhaven" got renamed "Sick-haven" half-way through our stay because of a flu-bug going around, people could be quarantined and had plenty of space to recover.  :)  (Hence the occasional picture of a person wearing a hospital mask.)

Enough of the Texans must have been dreaming of a white Christmas, because we got plenty of snow up in the canyon!

Snowmen were built

Snowball fights were had

And a killer, sled-eating run was created

Christmas wouldn't have been complete without:

Plenty of Christmas cookies (thanks Grandma KK!)

A fully-costumed nativity production with:

A Heavenly-Host of angels

Mary and Joseph (4-day-old Tennyson couldn't play baby Jesus b/c his dad had the flu!)

3 very Wise Men

And Shepherds to be "sore afraid"

There was plenty of hanging out,

Playing games,

Doing crafts,

Sleeping,

 

And then on Christmas morning there were more presents under one tree than I have ever seen in my life.  And once the first present was unwrapped, there was more extremely fun, Christmas-morning-chaos than I could have imagined!  (I come from a family of 4 children, and I'm the only one married...we can't even come close to competing!)   

Later that day, to continue a personal Christmas tradition, John couldn't just enjoy the beautiful scenery surrounding us....

He had to actually be a part of it in his annual Christmas-day Polar Bear Plunge!

The lake was off-limits so he had to make do with a stream.  It was still pretty cold!  :)

I'm pretty sure Christmas 2010 at Springhaven is going to go down in Ellis family history.  I'm glad we got to be a part of it!