Christmas and {Pre} Christmas Festivities

Somehow I let Thanksgiving creep by without an update. (I blame the ice storm.) Ideally I would post Thanksgiving photos before Christmas, buuut since my computer is being disagreeable at the moment, we will move on!

Right outside of our library (and City Hall), our city puts together a Christmas village each December. It's so cute and fun. We didn't actually go at night this year, though we've been in the past, but I did take Lilleigh to go play at the village and walk around during the day. Here's a photo of her in a sleigh. It's seriously amazing that she smiled for this photo. That never ever happens! 

Before Chrsitmas, Tita came up to visit. She watched Lilleigh for me while I took Adeline to the pediatrician. They decorated gingerbread houses, wrapped gifts, ... and to be honest, I'm not even sure what all they did while I was gone, but they certainly seemed to get a lot of Christmas cheer fit into that little bit!













One afternoon I organized a birthday party for Jesus. I figured a birthday party with cake would help the kids to understand that Christmas is us celebrating Jesus' birthday. There were more photos of the kids singing happy birthday and blowing out the candles, but I'm not sure where those photos went. So I'll just say that we had the party at the park. There was cookie cake and juice boxes. And of course candles. It was a small crowd, but the kids enjoyed it! I think we will make it an annual event, and next time I will plan a little further ahead. We did end up leaving early because Lil was having a meltdown, but such is life with an almost 3-year-old...





For Christmas, Mimi and Grammy came up. We went to the Christmas Eve service at church and then came home and had chili in front of the fireplace. Here are some photos from church.







These are Lilleigh and two of her sweet friends - Ava and McKinley.


Since we don't do Santa, most of the gifts were out ahead of time, but I added a few extra on Christmas Eve. I really loved how when Lilleigh woke up, she just wanted to watch Curious George and sit on the couch. She couldn't have cared less about the gifts. Love that. I'm sure it'll be one of the last years for that.




Here is our family on Christmas morning.
Brendon made his homemade cinnamon rolls, which we all love! (Here's the recipe. Naturally, we swap out the bad stuff like margarine for the real thing.)
 

We opened gifts. We really tried not to go overboard buying gifts, but between gifts from Brendon and me, Grammy, Mimi, and then grandparents who had mailed things because they weren't there, the amount of gifts piled up! We had an all day gift opening marathon! It was soooo nice to just stay home this year for Christmas. (Would you believe it's only the second time EVER that I've been home all day on Christmas?) We relaxed, opened gifts, let Lil play with some gifts, eat, came back for more, napped, came back for more... Seriously it went all day. It wouldn't have been an awesome Christmas without the gifts, since gifts don't make Christmas. The nice part of it all really was not being rushed and just getting to spend time with those present.

Here are some pics of Lil playing with her toys.






After naps, we cooked an awesome yet simple dinner of pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, salad, and rolls. It was so yummy! And then... we went back to opening gifts! Seriously. I know. This is just before bedtime, and we were still opening!



It was an awesome Christmas! We feel very blessed to get to stay home this year and that parents wanted to come visit us!

We hope y'all had a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Comments

  1. Ashleigh, we did a birthday party for Jesus when I was little too! Birthday cake, and candles. But what I remember most, other than the singing, was that each child came to the party dressed as someone or some animal from the nativity. And the youngest kid was baby jesus. I was Mary a few times, or an angel of course. But my sister went as the "Manger dog" one time, because she wanted to be nothing but a dog. It was pretty free form. Friends younger brothers were shepherds or wisemen. And we would read the bible story and "act" it out sorta. Anyways, it makes for amazing pictures today! I love the annual tradition.

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