Thursday, December 27, 2012

Christmas 2012

We started out with the Ward Christmas Party.  Gabe is insistent on believing in Santa which makes it really fun and funny.  When Brad told him that Santa isn't real, Gabe refused to believe him and got upset.  So we left it at that.  I have to admit, it is super fun that he believes in Santa, it just makes it more magical.
We decorated the house with snowflakes.  Beautiful!
Christmas Eve pajamas from Grandma Cathy & Grandpa Denton.  We love this tradition!
My favorite part of Christmas Eve is acting out the Christmas story.  Noah was the narrator and angel.  Amalie was Mary, Brad was Joseph.  I was a shepherd and Gabe was baby Jesus in a storage box, ha!  Love it!
Beautiful Mary!
Baby Jesus.
Our Christmas morning photo.  It was a really sweet morning.  The kids were really good the night before as we told them that the earlier they went to bed and were quiet and trying to sleep, the earlier we would get up to open presents.  They earned the earliest time by being in bed at 8 pm and getting the privelege of waking up at 6:30 am.  We were surprised how sweet and patient they were in the morning as we went through our routine of family picture, family prayers, scripture study and everyone telling their favorite part of Christmas.  It started on a really sweet note and was just a very sweet day.
We always do stockings first!  It's especially fun for us, because that's the only thing we do for our kids since they get so many presents from extended family.
It was a wonderful Christmas and we were especially grateful that if we had to get sick it at least waited until the day after Christmas.  Noah and I could hardly get out of bed the next day (and for me it was about 6 days before I could halfway function) and then Brad got it a few days later.  I hardly remember that week after Christmas and was kind of sad that I hardly got to hang out with the kids during their Christmas break.  But I was so grateful we got Christmas festivities together.  What a blessing!

2 comments:

Alyssa said...

Family picture, scriptures, and prayer before opening presents? Wow.
We know who has their priorities straight! You are an excellent example to me.

Kate said...

Actually when I said that was our routine, I meant for Christmas day! It's a little different day to day. But my parents always did stuff like that where they know we will be good because we are anticipating something and I swore I'd never do that to my kids, but here we are. It's a great motivator for them to actually be reverent and participate and be there since they know the quicker they cooperate the quicker we open presents. So we do have ulterior motives, ha!