Shit!

Yes, that's right, horse shit! Immediately after opening presents, as
per Joel family Christmas tradition, it was off to the barn to shovel
horse shit for an hour. What a way to end a beautiful morning ^^
actually, it *was* a pretty nice day outside..

..as my father likes to say, "a family that shovels shit together, stays together." There you have it =]

To Conclude..

All-in-all, I think we could all agree that Christmas was a success.
To top it off, this is probably one of the happiest pictures I've ever
seen of the three of us.

The Christmas joy, however, was far from over..

Post-carnage

The Christmas tree just doesn't look the same without the presents
underneath =\ I guess that's a given though..

Victory

Our work here is done, the carnage complete; there were no survivors.
A very satisfied Joel family looks on =] the remains of our vanquished
foes lay scattered at our feet.

Merry Christmas, Comrade!

My parents managed to find these really campy army snow hats from
Soviet-era Russia. Here's Luca pledging his allegiance to the
motherland =]

Tormented Creature

Finally, Lucy hits rock bottom. She has become totally unresponsive,
and the mere mention of food causes an awkward rumbling noise to sound
from her gut. At least she'll know better next year.. Or not.

Gentleman of Leisure

The great scholar appreciating the first of what would become a
proverbial mountain of books that he would receive over the next hour.