Christmas time

 

We had a wonderful Christmas season as usually.  A lot of family time and a lot of activities to keep us busy.  I always try to get as much of the busy work done by the start of December so that I can hopefully keep the stress down as much as possible and truly be present. We had a lot of different activities planned leading up to Christmas including the office Christmas party, writing letters to Santa (which is always tricky because I have finished shopping by this point), Grinch Night, The Nutcracker, the kids both had friend Christmas parties, went and saw some lights, made gingerbread houses, watching as many Christmas movies as possible and dinner at Ruth's Chris.  These have all become fun traditions that help us get into the Christmas spirit and we look forward to them each year. 

Since Christmas Eve was on Sunday we did some of our normal Christmas Eve activities on Saturday.  We went with my side of the family to the Eagle Island tubing hill.  We all had a blast.  Afterwards we went back to my moms house for chili and corn bread for lunch and the kids decorated sugar cookies for Santa.

On Sunday the 24th, we went to church and had a wonderful sacrament meeting full of beautiful messages of Christ through song.  I then got a lot of cooking done for the next few days. We then stopped by my Mom's house on our way up to Craig's parents house for Christmas Eve dinner.  Diane did the traditional Prime Rib and ham along with all of the fixings.  It was delicious as always.  After dinner the kids and Stan and Diane did a fun White Elephant gift exchange and then we finished off the evening reading and acting out the nativity.  It was only our family and Mark's family so the Dad's had to join in.  Once we got home we got cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots and candy canes (McKay insisted that reindeer like them) for the reindeer.  Luckily Santa wasn't up too late, there was nothing for him to set up.

On Christmas morning McKay was in our room right at 7:00 am and Brooklyn woke up shortly after.  We headed downstairs to see what Santa got everyone.  The kids' Christmas lists were pretty short this year so it was a little difficult to think of enough things to get them, they live a rough life obviously.  After going through the stockings and checking out their sweet new basketballs, we took a break to eat cinnamons rolls that I had made the day before.  We then opened the rest of our gifts, which took all of about 30 minutes.  Everyone got some new workout clothes.  The kids both got some NFL gear.  Brooklyn got McKay a binder to keep all of his sports cards in and McKay got Brooklyn an Origami kit.  They both got some new workout shoes.  McKay got a new bike, that he desperately needed and Brooklyn got a new fitness tracker watch.  The kids opened a few things up to play with/look at closer while I got a few things ready for dinner.  We then headed up to Craig's parents house to hang out and open some more gifts.  The kids got a day at Roaring Springs Water Park and a day at Wahooz with their Nana and Pops.  They are pretty stoked about that.  We also ate leftovers for lunch.  We then headed to my Mom's house for Christmas dinner.  We got to eat Prime Rib two days in a row, can't complain about that.  We then got to open up even more gifts.  The kids did their cousin gift exchange and then McKay got a bean bag from Grandma and Brooklyn got a fanny pack and volleyball knee pads.  We had a busy but wonderful few days.  We are grateful to be able to live so close to so much family and be able to share these days with them.. The kids love to be with their cousins and grandparents. We tried really hard to focus on our Savior as much as possible and to remember that Christmas is only important because there was an Easter.  We are so grateful for our Lord and Savior and his sacrifice that was made on our behalf.  It was a wonderful Christmas season with our family, now time to clean up.