The days leading up to Christmas this year were pretty laid back...without any visitors coming and without us traveling anywhere it just made things a lot more simple. Nonetheless, there was still a bit of a rush to finish the shopping and gift buying, gift wrapping, and making the cookies and candies that I had wanted to have, especially since I had been gone for work the previous week. I was successful at most of these, except getting out Christmas cards. Speaking of being gone the week before, I can't forget to mention that John and the family gave me a wonderful welcome home when they picked me up at the airport, which happened to be on the day of John and my 5th wedding anniversary. Evan and Emma were each holding ends of a big banner that said "Welcome Home Mommy", and John was holding flowers, chocolates, and a wrapped gift. As soon as Emma saw me she dropped her end of the banner, turned to John to start getting the flowers from him and handed me the flowers. Then she got the chocolates and handed me the chocolates. She was so exited to see me, but almost more excited to give me all of the gifts they had for me. It was adorable. That 5-day trip seemed like an eternity away from them.
So, I was very glad that for the rest of the holidays we all got to be home together. No big plans other than to hang out at home and be together as a family. Evan and Emma were both getting very excited for Santa to come. We had driven around to look at Christmas lights in town the night before. My plan for the day was to hang out at home and make and decorate cookies for Santa, hang our stockings, and dine on a nice roast dinner that evening. I was also hoping for a family photo by the Christmas tree to continue the tradition from last year. And if we could watch Christmas Vacation (a tradition in my family, especially with my sister) that would be a nice touch too.
Things started out on track. We started by cleaning up the living room and actually sorting through the kids' toys to get rid of any that were not being played with anymore. I felt that a little purge was a nice way to minimize a bit before the onslaught of new toys the next morning. It also helped make room for us to hang our stockings.
The stockings have been hung...
Then we started making our cookies. Both kids helped me cut the cookies into snowflake and gingerbread man shapes. After they baked and were cool, they both helped frost them as well. Each cookie had to have sprinkles as well! They each choose one cookie they made to be their cookie for Santa. The cookies made a nice base for our sweet tray spread, combined with other cookies and candies I'd made leading up to then.
Their chosen cookies for Santa
The sweet tray
Later that morning, the plan started to veer off course though. I checked the lamb roast that I had put in the refrigerator the day before to thaw and it was still frozen solid! Therefore, John and I decided to alter our plans rather than try to quick thaw it somehow. So, instead of snacky foods and roast dinner leftovers on Christmas Day, we decided we'd have a snack food dinner on Christmas Eve to give the roast another day to thaw, and reserve our nice roast dinner for Christmas Day. As a result, we decided not to dress up as much for our Christmas Eve meal then, and kept it more casual. However, we had already set the table to look nice, so that was still a nice touch for our snacky holiday meal.
Our dining table
While I was making dinner, we decided to introduce the kids to Christmas Vacation. They liked the cartoon introduction, but got kind of bored with it soon thereafter. It'll be another few years before they will start to appreciate it the same way I do. I recall liking a few of the silly scenes as a younger child, but I didn't fully appreciate all of the comedy in it until I was high school age and beyond. After dinner we all enjoyed one of our freshly made cookies.
Even though we hadn't dressed up as much as I had originally planned, we decided to still take a Christmas Eve family photo. Without anyone else to take the photo for us, we had to use the timer function on John's cell phone camera. He propped it up against something on the other side of the living room, would push the button and then rush over to get in the photo with us. We did this several times, and I thought for sure none would come out given our track record of getting all the kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time even when there is someone taking the picture to tell them when and where to look! However, I was so delighted that in nearly all of the photos we took that both kids looked and said cheese! :) In fact, the only thing that made most of those photos not turn out was the lack of the flash, which made them too dark and the tree lights too blurred. So we took one shot with a flash and low and behold it looked great! Both kids were happy and attentive. No need to blind ourselves multiple times then (once was already enough!). The kids really have no idea how much it meant to me that they did this so well...it was really the best early Christmas gift! :)
Our family...Christmas 2015
Then we spent some time watching Youtube videos of homes with elaborate Christmas light displays timed to music. Wow, there are some amazing homes out there! We had a little dance party to those that had music with good beats, and we all sang along together to those that used songs from "Frozen". We also took a look at the Norad Santa tracker to see where he was, and when we learned he was already on the east coast, we realized the kids better hurry to get to sleep before he headed our way! Before getting ready for bed, we set the special cookies out on a plate for Santa. Besides pouring him a glass of milk, Evan insisted he'd also want some water, so we set out a cup of water as well. Then I asked Evan to find something for the reindeer and he came back with the whole bag of carrots we had in our refrigerator drawer. Santa and his reindeer would be well fed and hydrated at our house tonight! There was definitely plenty of excitement and magic in the air as we put the kids to bed on this beautiful Christmas Eve.
There was so much excitement in the air!
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