Missed Christmas photos

I was downloading some photos from the camera and for whatever reason, instead of just selecting the ones that were new, it selects almost all of the ones on the camera.  Anyhow, I was going through some of them and realized that I had forgotten to post a few photos from this past Christmas.  Not too many but it was sort of significant to our Christmas "ritual" now:

Firstly, the Christmas Crackers!  I was first introduced to this when I used to celebrate Christmas with a good friend of mine that I used to work with back in Phoenix. Her Dad is English and that's what they normally do in England. Somehow we started this tradition a few years ago - the Christmas Crackers must have been sale or something while we were Christmas shopping :-)

These particular ones each came with a whistle that is numbered.  And in this case, each of us would get 2 whistles although Charlie lost one when he was opening one of the crackers.  It was quite tricky trying to play the Christmas songs that was provided - where the notes were numbered.  Maybe we need to practice for this year's Christmas!

The crackers always come with a paper crown, which are almost always too big for the boys. But Graham and Charlie still manage:

And speaking of Charlie, he LOVES sparkling grape! I thought it would be nice to have a little "bubbly" for Christmas.  Guess we will be starting a new tradition now! :-D