Christmas Time

 

As always we had a wonderful Christmas together as a family.  We spent most of Christmas Eve with my family since Craig's parents were in Florida.  Christmas Eve morning we met up with my family, minus Sunni's clan, at Eagle Island to try out their tubbing hill.  McKay was a little hesitant at first and always wanted to ride with someone else, but by the end he was so proud to go down all by himself, even if that meant he sunk down low in the tube and closed his eyes.  It was a lot of fun to go out and do something active with the whole family.  After tubbing we headed over to Casa Mexico, a family favorite, for lunch.  My mom was able to reserve the banquet room which allowed the kids to roam.  After lunch we all headed home for a quick shower and then back up to my Mom's for the reading and acting out of the nativity, cousin presents, our gift to Christ,  and more food. We then headed home to get the kiddos to bed and make sure Santa was ready for the next morning.

Luckily the kids weren't up too early Christmas morning.  I got up a little early to get the French toast casserole in the oven and make sure everything was ready to go downstairs.  At 7:00 we then let the kids head downstairs to see if Santa had come.  I love watching the awe and excitement of kids on Christmas morning, it doesn't get much better than that.  After going through Santa's gifts we took a break and ate some breakfast and then went back to finish up the gifts.  The kids were so excited to buy each other gifts this year.  They may have only been from the dollar store but they were as big of a hit as the more expensive gifts form Mom and Dad.  

Once all the gifts were opened and playing had begun, Craig and I started to get packed up to head up to the cabin.  We decided that since Craig still had Saturday and Sunday off we might as well take advantage of the weekend and head to McCall as well.  We had the cabin to ourselves and Craig and Brooklyn headed up to the ski hill for the first ski of the season and then we spent the rest of the time playing in the snow and drinking hot chocolate.  It really was a magical Christmas!

Getting ready for Christmas

 

As always we had a lot of fun things planned to help us get into the Christmas spirit.  Right after Thanksgiving we got the house decorated and the kids wrote their letters to Santa.  The city of Star had a mailbox just for Santa so we went and dropped them off and the kids even got a letter in return letting them know that they were on the NICE list.

A few days later we headed over to Mark and Paige's for the annual Grinch night.  The kids always have a blast playing Christmas bingo, pin the heart on Grinch, decorating sugar cone Christmas trees, eating everything green and watching The Grinch.  We look forward to Grinch night every year.

We then had an early Christmas Eve dinner with Craig's side of the family.  Craig's parents were in Florida for Christmas visiting their newest grandbaby so we decided to celebrate a little early.  As always Diane cooked an amazing prime rib and we had all the yummy sides you could imagine.  The kids then acted out the nativity and opened a few gifts from Nana and Pops.

My Mom decorated my Dad's grave for Christmas and put up a little tree.  The kids were so excited to make some ornaments to take to Grandpa.  McKay also had a little preschool Christmas program.  They sang a few songs and played the bells for a few songs too.  It was super cute and McKay was just so thrilled by it all.

Because of COVID we weren't able to go to the Nutcracker or the Lights A Glow at the Botanic Gardens, but we were still able to go check out the lights at Indian Creek Plaza in Caldwell.  They do such a great job every year and they even had a socially distanced Santa and Mrs. Claus to take pictures with.  We had fun walking around with the Sell's and their kiddos.

We then topped off our pre-Christmas festivities with lots of sugar.  We decorated a gingerbread house and decorated sugar cookies for Santa.  We love having friends over every year to help us decorate.  I may find sprinkles on the floor for months afterwards, but it is totally worth it.  The hard part is not eating all the cookies.  

On Craig's last day of work before Christmas we took the kiddos in for their annual eye exam, Brooklyn had been complaining about not being able to see the board at school.  She doesn't need glasses quite yet, but it is coming soon.  While their eyes were dilated we hung inside and then watch yet another version of the Grinch, by this point we had watched every version there is at least once if not twice. It's always hard balancing all the fun activities and making sure the kids understand the real meaning of Christmas.  Fingers crossed we got the point across.