Christmas!

We celebrated Christmas with just our little family again this year and while we really miss our extended families and all those fun get togethers, our Christmas seemed to be peaceful, without an ounce of stress, and totally relaxing.  I loved every minute of the week of vacation Carl took and being able to just focus on our little family.  Being that we had no commitments or engagements to attend to, we decided that Christmas would come to our house a day early. We knew the kids would be receiving some outdoor toys and wanted to give them a chance to play with them on Saturday.  

I had already wrapped the presents the week before so on Friday night we watched a movie with the kids, set out cookies, and watched a tv show while we waited for the kids to fall asleep.  We loaded the presents beneath the tree, left the Christmas tree lights on, and headed to bed ourselves.  The kids slept in but it was pure joy when they finally came in to "wake us up" and let us know that Santa HAD come.  They were so excited.  Christmas rocks with kids.  Some of us got dressed (Carl and Connor) and some of us stayed in our pj's (Tyler and myself) and then we lazily opened gifts, ate breakfast (which wasn't fabulous - new recipe for a french toast casserole off of Pinterest - major disappointment) and committed to return to our known favorites for holidays, and played outside.  

The kids were absolutely thrilled with everything they received and to make it that much more enjoyable, they expressed their gratitude frequently.  After opening each gift, they would exclaim a big thank you to the giver (even if they weren't present).  After opening jumbo dinosaurs, a dr.'s kit, super hero sweats and armor, scooters, basketball hoop, fun family games, and loads of books it was hard to decide which was their favorite.

On the real Christmas morning, we enjoyed sugary cereal and a quiet morning getting ready for church.  The service was really nice and we spent the rest of the day visiting with family on the phone and enjoying many of our new books.  Perhaps it was because of the kids' excitement, perhaps because there was just no stress, but regardless the reason, I'd chalk this one up to be one of my favorite Christmases ever!