The Christmas Report

Frankly, December was tough for me:  too much to do, too little sun, too difficult 2 year old, too much eating.  But…

Christmas was really lovely.  It was the first Christmas that we’ve ever spent with just our little (big?) family and it was nice to just connect and enjoy each other on that level. 

We all donned the obligatory Christmas attire and headed out for our restaurant-and-a-movie Christmas Eve tradition. 

The restaurant was so kid friendly and pretty low stress.

 

Faith found a boyfriend there:

 

We watched Tangled for our movie and I concur with everyone else:  super great. 

We went to the Daines for our Bethlehem night tradition: bathrobe Bethlehem attire, candlelight, fish, pitas, hummus, no utensils, silly cousins. 

We did a ridiculously irreverent Nativity Play and opened PJs and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.

We love the easy-going familiarity and good spirit we feel when we’re with the Daines.

Christmas morning was early for us. 

We’d bargained 6:00 am with Gabe and at 5:45 we got a knock on our door “Um.  I know you said 6:00, but I thought you’d want time to comb hair and take pictures, so I thought I’d make sure you had 15 minutes.”  Thanks, Gabe.

Seth won for Most Enthusiastic during present opening.

…especially when the whale/dolphin pillow pet made it’s appearance near the end.  He was sweating that one.  We finally got a Wii and though the big kids found out about it early (such a bummer to not get a Pay-off Reaction for such a begged for present!), it’s been the most popular present by a mile.

We spent the day playing games, watching movies, taking a chilly walk, doing puzzles. 

I didn’t make any special Christmas meal on the 25th (I was tired of spending my holidays in the kitchen!), so I made our “fancy” meal the next day (Sunday). 

I honestly couldn’t imagine that the grouchiness and stress of the first few weeks of the month would go away, but it did and paid off in a sweet, easy, blessed holiday with my favorite people in the world.