Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Our Christmas

We had a very nice and relaxing Christmas this year. 
We spent Christmas Eve differently than we ever have. But I think it will be the way we spend Christmas Eve from here on out. We started the evening with reading the book The Night Tree. It's about a family that goes out into the darkness of the night on Christmas Eve to decorate a tree for the animals to enjoy on Christmas day. They decorate with birdseed and popcorn and they sing Christmas carols and just enjoy the stillness and quietness of the night. We then went out and decorated our own tree. This is something my family used to do when I was growing up and I loved getting away from the craziness of Christmas for a while and just enjoying the quiet. We invited our friends, the Lewis family, to go with us. The kids loved it!
After that we drove around a little and looked at lights.
Then we returned home, opened up our Christmas pjs, ate our traditional Chinese food and watched a Christmas movie. Next year we'll start earlier so we can get a nativity pageant in as well. 
We decorated Santa's cookies. 
We took pictures by the tree. 
Then finished the night with 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. 
The next morning, the boys woke us up and we read Luke 2 all snuggled in our bed. This is probably my favorite tradition we have. I love starting the day off with the the story of the birth of our Savior. 
Then it was time for presents. 
I love the excitement of Christmas morning. 
Most of Christmas morning was documented with video. But we had such a nice relaxing day together. I love my little family. 

Even though it was just the five of us, we still wanted to have a nice Christmas dinner. I absolutely loved it! We ate just by the light of the Christmas tree, other Christmas lights around the house and a few candles. No one was complaining, everyone was happy, it was perfect. 
It was such a wonderful day. I wish I could go back and live it all over again. 

Friday, December 26, 2014

Things That Happened in December

We went to see a Christmas play called, The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever. It was a cute play but I don't see myself taking all three boys to another play... not anytime soon anyway. 
It was clearly a more casual setting, so maybe that's why my kids thought it a appropriate to be so noisy. 
It was a very cute story though and I think the boys had fun so that's what counts right? 
Kade's school does a "Cookies with Santa" night every year. It's free and pretty low-key.  We love it. 
This year they also got to make reindeer food. 
And they got to see Santa AND Mrs. Claus. Lucky ducks. You can see how nervous Tadd was by his hands. He was being brave though. 
We didn't do any big light viewings this year but we did stop at this house a few times. This is our friends house, the Johnston family. They were in our last ward.  They set their lights to music every year and it's awesome! 
I got to visit Kade's class during his class party. For their class parties, each class room (per grade) they have some sort of Christmas activity. I was only there for Santa and then milk and cookies but they made reindeer hats, ornaments and a few other things. 
We didn't do a lot this year. We're still trying to figure out our Christmas groove and settle on some new traditions. Hopefully next year we can do more! 

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Beginnings of Christmas

For some reason, this year it took me longer to get into the Christmas spirit. I wasn't motivated at all, to decorate or put the tree up. But alas, I succumbed to the little people in our house. We decorated. Inside and out. These boys of mine... they sure love Christmas. Aaron included. 

We did our traditional Christmas movie, pizza and decorating the tree. 

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