Having a 5 year-old and an almost-3-year-old are both hard guarantees that Christmas is going to be magical. And, our entire season was just that.
We kicked off the holidays with our favorite family tradition . . . hunting for, and cutting our Christmas tree in the woods! It's seriously so fun, so old-fashioned, and so magical. This year the weather was sooooo warm, only a tiny amount of snow to be found, but still oh-so-festive.
Beau and I took time for a little Holiday Concert with some friends. We cherish our date nights together. Jewel did not disappoint. She is one of those artists who are better live than on her own record. She is amazing!
We had lots of fun with Snowflake, our Elf. She was generously given to us by Evie's birth grandma and this Elf brought so much Christmas fun to our home. We loved looking for her every morning after she had flown the North Pole to give her report to Santa during the night, and sometimes, she brought the girls gifts. You know . . . on the days when they were super good!
We got to visit Santa and the girls were able to ask him for their Christmas wishes (Evie = Ukulele and Adeline = Beanie Boo).
The girls and I went on our yearly Mommy-Daughter date to the Festival of Trees. We loved looking at the trees and playing in the Kiddie Village.
We got to go to Evie's Kindergarten Christmas Program! Oh, how I love these! The kids are so darn cute and Evie just sang her little heart out!
Our family has a holiday tradition where we go to a Christmas concert together every season. So far, it's always been to the Voice Male concert. They are fun, family friendly, and we all had a blast laughing to their jokes and singing along to their music. Adeline even caught a little nap.
Christmas Eve day with our little family was fun. We said goodbye to Snowflake, she said goodby to us (in a special letter), we opened new PJ's, ate Christmas pancakes, and decorated a gingerbread house.
Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, and we love it when that happens. It really helps us to focus on Christ and worshipping at church just seems like the perfect thing to do! The girls looked so fancy!
Christmas Eve night was spent at Beau's mom's house. This is a traditional celebration with the extended family that involves singing carols, playing games, giving gifts, eating good food, reading Christmas stories, and more. This year we had a fun gender reveal (we're getting another girl cousin in May) and a surprise visit from Santa! It was so much fun!
Christmas morning was SO MUCH FUN! The girls were so excited, and so we were too! Their excitement was infectious. The girls both got their Christmas wishes from Santa. We loved opening gifts with them and they loved watching us open our gifts too.
Christas day we always go and visit my side of the family. My mom and dad make a traditional Christmas breakfast (Monte Cristo Sandwiches) and we do a gift exchange. This year all the girl cousins got Hatchimals and they were a huge hit! We also try to sneak in some fun, family games.
Every Christmas night we make our way over to Beau's dad's house for Christmas dinner. We had a yummy dinner, participated in a puppet nativity, and Grandma Ellie gave Evie her very first Ukulele lesson. Their house is always filled with music and cheer.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day always feel like a whirlwind, but it's a very HAPPY whirlwind. We loved our time spent celebrating Christ's birth with all of our grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, and cousins! We are so blessed with so many people to love and who freely love us back! Our hearts were so full!
Part of what also made this Christmas season extra special was that we participated in the "Light the World campaign. It's a service-based program with an initiative for every day in December. We weren't able to do it every day, but we took time to talk about it most days and found ways to serve where we could with two small children. We loved our neighbors (made, decorated, and delivered sugar cookies), we helped the girls honor their mother (game me flowers) and father (gave Dad a slurp and left secret love notes in his office), we judged less, prayed for our enemies, visited the sick, read scriptures, found ways to serve strangers by feeing the hungry (bought a case of peanut butter for the food bank), we served those that may be mourning (took gifts to those who recently lost loved ones), tried to be more merciful, clothed the naked (bought clothes for an unborn baby boy and his older sister), and we rejoiced! The girls were truly excited to do all of this and every night asked what the next day was for on our "light the World" calendar. They came up with most of these service ideas after we taught them the principles and we would ask, "what do you think we could do to accomplish this day's effort?" This truly made the season more meaningful, more Christ-centered, and brought so much love into our home.
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