Christmas came and went a few weeks ago; maybe I should post a thing or two about it! It was nice to hang out here with Pace’s parents & brother, Cotton. This year was our year for establishing more of our own Christmas traditions. It was about time we decided what our traditions are, since Pace & I have been married for 7 years now!
We had a big, delicious Christmas Eve dinner:
We also watched The Nativity movie & Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, which makes me happy! Some other traditions we have for the Christmas season are: Going to see the temple lights, taking treats to our neighbors (Chase loves that one), watching The Grinch, and secretly taking a big box of gifts + food to someone we know who needs a little extra Christmas cheer & then driving around to see some Christmas lights. That is my favorite tradition!
We all got tons of gifts on the big day. One thing we do to help limit the presents is that each child gets 3 (because the Three Wise Men gave 3 gifts to baby Jesus). But then they get other gifts from relatives, too! Here Charlotte is enjoying the real makeup set that Uncle Cotton gave her. Isn’t Chase a great makeup artist?
On Christmas morning, all the adults were up before the kids were! There’s a first time for everything! We woke the kids up at 7:15 to open presents. We opened all the gifts & made it to our 9am church on time!! So early. But it was wonderful to have church on Christmas Day! I had put together one of the musical numbers for the program—4 of us women sang Mary’s Lullaby from the Children’s Songbook. It was fun to get up & sing! The whole program was simple & special. We came back & got our stockings & hung out the rest of the day.
One highlight of this Christmas was that Pace surprised us all (he’s always full of surprises!) by borrowing our neighbor’s trailer for his parents to sleep in when they stayed at our place on Christmas Eve. It was a pretty nice trailer! The next night, Gretchen, Chase, & Charlotte slept in there.
This picture makes me laugh! Pace feeding apple strings (from peeled apples) to Chase & Charlotte at the McGrandparents’ place!
They also love taking baths there in the fancy jetted tub (just like at the TGrandparents’ house).
So anyway, I LOVE having the Christmas tree & decorations up… But by the end of the month, I’m over it. All the clutter must be put away, ASAP!! I actually started taking things down on Christmas night after the kids had gone to bed. Bah humbug! On Dec. 26th, Chase & Charlotte were saddened by the news & tried to protect the tree so it wouldn’t get put away. It didn’t work!
There’s kind of a sad feeling in the air when Christmas is over & all the excitement of the season is done, but at the same time, it’s always a relief to get back to normal life & back to the regular basic home décor, too. Like when you go on a trip—It’s always nice to leave, but then it’s always nice to come back home, too!