Christmas Part 1

This year was an at-home-by-oursleves Christmas.  And it was great.  We love doing things with extended family, and we did have fun with cousins and grandparents the week before, and we did bowl with cousins on Christmas Eve day, and we do have more family coming this weekend....but this year we decided not to see anyone over Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.  And it was one of our best Christmases ever.  I loved it.  It was so relaxed and low key.  We got up and went to 9 am church, and then came home (changed back into PJs), opened stockings, opened presents, played with presents, read, napped, watched TV, played games, sang a bit of karaoke (new gift...for the kids of course, not for me).

And let's talk food.  Since it was just the 7 of us, and with Christmas being on the Sabbath, we decided to do our big turkey dinner on Christmas Eve instead.  Great, great idea. 

A few weeks ago, at our ward Christmas party, I was the emcee, and during a pause I talked about Christmas traditions.  Now James and I aren't big into traditions, but there is one that I am faithful to every year.  EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.  This is the tradition of filling up on so much Christmas chocolate and baking that I don't even want to eat the Christmas dinner that I work on for hours.  So having the turkey dinner on the night before I open my stocking full of crap (albeit tasty crap), meant that I really enjoyed the food for the first time in years.

1.  Annual Hang-the-Stockings Shots

 2.  James with his stocking

3.  Olivia and Will during our Christmas Eve program

4.  James reading Christmas books. 

5.  Our Christmas Eve dinner.  It was also a special dinner because we just moved our table back into our house a week ago.  Before that, we couldn't all sit down at eat at the small table we still had inside.  The kids would sit and eat, and James and I would stand at the counter.  Sitting together...what a novel idea.  I'll do a reno update post later this week (so make sure you check back...)

6.  Christmas morning...Will getting presents from under the tree

7.  Stockings with the kids

8.  It's like a present tornado hit the living room...this is why it was so relaxing not to have anyone over. It stayed like this until the next morning.

Finally, tuned back tomorrow to see why this Christmas really was the merriest Christmas ever....