Christmas has finally wrapped up for my family and although our decorations will still be up for another week it feels like we are finally moving on to the New Year! We were able to celebrate Christmas with both sides of our family this year, a real treat.
We started off by going to a Christmas Eve (eve eve,) service on Thursday night. The church we have been attending for a couple of weeks is a bigger church and they were having something like eight services and you were advised to reserve a seat online. We originally planned on going to a Christ,as Eve service on Saturday afternoon but it was all booked up. Thursday night worked well. I brought a bag full of our amazing interactive Usborne books and the kids stood to sing with us then entertained themselves semi quietly. The girls felt so special to get to hold their own candle then it was over and off to home and bed we went!
Ian's parents flew up from Florida on Christmas Eve. We had dinner (Christmas Eve enchiladas,) and opened the kids' Christmas pajamas after reading the Christmas story from Luke 2. It was neat to see how much more of the story the girls retained this year! The kids went to bed and we wrapped some last minute things and got the stockings and tree ready.
As a side note, we don't really "do santa," with the kids. We say the same thing we say about the costumed characters at Disney- "It's a fun story people like to make believe and have fun with. Isn't that neat? We can pretend too!" But for some reason this year (hmph, being in school and just being in America in general,) It's like the girls have forgotten completely about the whole pretending part. So, we are a bit at a loss how much we push the whole story. They will say "Such and such is pretend but Santa is real! " I've chimed in that it's a story too but they just ignore me completely. So, when we put out cookies (cinnamon rolls because I didn't get around to baking cookies!) they were over excited to see if Santa would come and eat them.
Christmas Day we woke up when Luke woke up (a little before 7,) got coffee brewing, and opened stockings. We took a brief pause to grab Christmas morning Cinnamon Rolls then went on with presents. Considering we stick to the "Something you want, something you need, something to wear (or love!) and something to read," gift guide it sure seemed like we had too much!
We had a Christmas lunch of ham, green beans, corn casserole, and homemade cranberry sauce before we put the kids down for a nap and Ian and I headed out to watch Rogue One (free babysitting!) The evening was spent hanging out as a family and playing with new toys.
Later in the week Ian's parents flew home and the kids and I drove to Nashville to spend New Years with my parents. Ian had to work, sadly, so he could not join. Though I think he is enjoying a few nights of uninterrupted sleep just fine! The drive was LONG but we survived, thanks to an iPad, copious snacks, and some good listening material.
The morning after we arrived we got to celebrate Christmas again with my parents! It was fun to get to see some of the same traditions play out again but with my kiddos. The girls got more Calico Critters things, which they love, and Luke got some Thomas the train things and a tool bench. We had a ham dinner and drove out to see a really neat light display.
Ian and. Did some small presents for each other but since we did just have to replace both Of our seven year old laptops that sort of counted as our gifts. Yay for working technology, which is part of the reason I can blog again!
We started off by going to a Christmas Eve (eve eve,) service on Thursday night. The church we have been attending for a couple of weeks is a bigger church and they were having something like eight services and you were advised to reserve a seat online. We originally planned on going to a Christ,as Eve service on Saturday afternoon but it was all booked up. Thursday night worked well. I brought a bag full of our amazing interactive Usborne books and the kids stood to sing with us then entertained themselves semi quietly. The girls felt so special to get to hold their own candle then it was over and off to home and bed we went!
Ian's parents flew up from Florida on Christmas Eve. We had dinner (Christmas Eve enchiladas,) and opened the kids' Christmas pajamas after reading the Christmas story from Luke 2. It was neat to see how much more of the story the girls retained this year! The kids went to bed and we wrapped some last minute things and got the stockings and tree ready.
As a side note, we don't really "do santa," with the kids. We say the same thing we say about the costumed characters at Disney- "It's a fun story people like to make believe and have fun with. Isn't that neat? We can pretend too!" But for some reason this year (hmph, being in school and just being in America in general,) It's like the girls have forgotten completely about the whole pretending part. So, we are a bit at a loss how much we push the whole story. They will say "Such and such is pretend but Santa is real! " I've chimed in that it's a story too but they just ignore me completely. So, when we put out cookies (cinnamon rolls because I didn't get around to baking cookies!) they were over excited to see if Santa would come and eat them.
Christmas Day we woke up when Luke woke up (a little before 7,) got coffee brewing, and opened stockings. We took a brief pause to grab Christmas morning Cinnamon Rolls then went on with presents. Considering we stick to the "Something you want, something you need, something to wear (or love!) and something to read," gift guide it sure seemed like we had too much!
We had a Christmas lunch of ham, green beans, corn casserole, and homemade cranberry sauce before we put the kids down for a nap and Ian and I headed out to watch Rogue One (free babysitting!) The evening was spent hanging out as a family and playing with new toys.
Later in the week Ian's parents flew home and the kids and I drove to Nashville to spend New Years with my parents. Ian had to work, sadly, so he could not join. Though I think he is enjoying a few nights of uninterrupted sleep just fine! The drive was LONG but we survived, thanks to an iPad, copious snacks, and some good listening material.
The morning after we arrived we got to celebrate Christmas again with my parents! It was fun to get to see some of the same traditions play out again but with my kiddos. The girls got more Calico Critters things, which they love, and Luke got some Thomas the train things and a tool bench. We had a ham dinner and drove out to see a really neat light display.
Ian and. Did some small presents for each other but since we did just have to replace both Of our seven year old laptops that sort of counted as our gifts. Yay for working technology, which is part of the reason I can blog again!
3 comments:
Booking a spot for Christmas services! That's so crazy to me!
I feel like my kids forgot Santa is pretend this year too! Maybe it's the age. I had to remind Wyatt, and we talked about St. Nicholas (the real person), and then he asked if St. Nick will come down our mansion's chimney and bring us presents in Heaven. 😳 Oy vey. We'll work on it again next year.
I went through this too! Just found this:
http://meandthreee.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/santa-claus-is-coming-to-town.html
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