Merry Christmas!

This was the first year that we had everything ready for Christmas before December – in years past we always had most everything done early, but even so we always found ourselves with the last couple gifts to pick up, and then always wrapping things on Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed. This year we got it all done early, even the wrapping, and it sure was nice.

On Christmas Eve we went on our drive to see Christmas lights. This year we looked online and found a house out in Henrietta where they had their lights programmed to music (and you would just turn your car radio to a certain station to hear the music in your car). We only stayed to see about half the songs, but it was pretty cool.

We came home to find that Santa had been there, but we had surprised him so he had to leave and come back later with the rest of his gifts [this is a tradition from Michael’s family growing up].  He did leave one gift that night for the whole family: an expansion set to our favorite game, Carcassonne.  We had fun playing the game – I’m always surprised at how well even our little guys understand the strategies of an adult game like that, the three oldest understand entirely and often beat their parents, and Isaac gets it and can play too (but he doesn’t totally get the idea of the farms in the game, so sometimes he opts to be on Daddy’s team).  We were also going to read our traditional Christmas books that night, but Mommy had hidden them someplace really good so they’d be safe, and after scouring the entire house we finally gave up, oh well.

Christmas morning was fun, and I loved watching the boys get so excited about the gifts they had chosen for each other.  A few of the highlights were Camden’s and Lijah’s new watches that Courtland gave them, the temple pictures for all the boys from Grandma Faun and Grandpa Dick & Grandma Debbie, all the new stuffed animals, the Cars 2 lego sets and movie from Nana and Papa, and a fun new kid’s dancing game for the Wii.

Later on in the afternoon on Christmas the boys acted out the story of Christ’s birth while Michael read it from the scriptures.  (In this picture Camden is being a shepherd and Brax is his sheep – he’s acting afraid when the angel came and said, “Fear not.”) 

Then Mommy remembered her hiding spot for the special Christmas Eve books (in the cupboard above the fridge with the bread making ingredients, of course), so we read the books [a tradition from my family growing up].  The boys worked hard on their Lego sets, we played some more Carcassonne, and we watched a new movie called “17 Miracles” that Michael’s sister gave us.  Then we tried out grilling BBQ ribs for dinner for the first time ever [another Christmas tradition in my family].  They were excellent, so that may need to be our new official Christmas dinner from now on.

And we got to do webcam chats with both sides of the family that evening.  We talked to my family on Skype (my parents, Grandma Faun, Jennifer, and Aaron), who were at their cabin in Mammoth.  And then we got to do a Google+ chat with Michael’s family (we love Google+ because you can talk with lots of different people in different locations over their webcams at the same time).  So we got to see Michael’s parents, Annette, and Mindy in Boise; Mel & Christian and their boys in Utah, Alan & Jenn and their boys in Florida, and Jennie & Dalin and their son in Japan all at the same time – technology sure can be pretty cool, huh?  Afterwards Annette shared some photos she took from that night – (didn’t think to take pictures of the webcam shots, or I would have had some of my family too). 

It was a really nice Christmas.  And we can’t wait for next year when we live closer to family and will be able to spend holidays with the people we love.