Christmas Morning: Controlled Chaos Edition

Christmas morning in the Hartwell house looks exactly like you’d expect - beautiful disaster.

Christmas Morning: Controlled Chaos Edition

We made it about thirty minutes before the kitchen looked like a wrapping paper bomb went off. Marcus spent longer trying to figure out the assembly instructions than Theo spent playing with the actual toy.

Of course Sophie immediately started documenting everything with her new phone

Fort architect at work

, because apparently the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Meanwhile, Theo decided the empty boxes were more interesting than anything that came in them

New phone, who dis?

. Kid built an entire architectural masterpiece out of cardboard while we weren’t looking.

Biscuit, naturally, claimed victory over all the wrapping paper

Biscuit won Christmas

and has been carrying around the same piece of silver tissue paper for two hours like it’s his greatest treasure. And somehow, despite the chaos, I still managed to look decent with my coffee

How does she look this good on Christmas morning?

• Christmas morning magic, I guess.

This is what Christmas looks like when you have kids, a golden retriever, and zero shame about the mess. Wouldn’t trade this beautiful chaos for anything.