Christmas

We had Christmas with Grandma/pa Lewis on the ,before Grandma flew off to Texas for a few weeks. Ryan and Darci were up for the weekend so we all got together for an early Christmas. The kids kept asking after that if Christmas was over - nope just the beginning for them. They basically got three Christmases.

Christmas Eve was a great day. We have made it a tradition to spend Christmas Eve day with grandma/pa Christensen. We start with a big, late breakfast with sausage, grandma’s famous buttermilk pancakes, eggs, fresh juice with the juicer. Then we opened presents. The kids, of coarse, couldn’t wait for this part. With the new Wii games we all headed downstairs to play them. Later came the sausage dip and shrimp rings. We all felt bad for Kaylee because she didn’t feel good – the life of the party was in her bed trying to get better.

Christmas Eve Evening we spent quietly at home. We watched “the Greatest Gift” – the DVD put together for the ward party. We read Luke 2. We answered question after question. Devin wins the questions of the night award. He wanted to watch that DVD over and over. We read Christmas stories and then got a plate of chocolates ready for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. The kids were very ready to go to bed and fell asleep right at 8:00.

Again, the kids slept in on Christmas morning. We thought that Jacquelyn might wake up a little earlier, but everyone woke up at 7:00. Jacquelyn and Haylee were even talking for a while before they came and got us. We told them the night before that they had to come and get us before they peeked in the living room. I had breakfast already made, but they begged us not to eat breakfast until after they saw if Santa had come. So, they peeked in the living room and were so excited to see their gifts from Santa and a stocking full of presents. They played with their Santa presents for a while and then decided to open the gifts in the stocking. It was amazing. They were in no rush to open more presents. They enjoyed each of them that they opened for a while before opening more. We didn’t finish opening presents until 10:00 and it wasn’t because they had a lot. We had a fire going and it was just so cozy and relaxing – a great room to be together in. After we finished with presents we played games and watched a movie until we had to leave to go to Great grandma/pa Christensen’s house for dinner. We spent a few hours there eating a nice dinner, playing the thimble game, talking, and eating berries and ice cream.

A video to come - too many pictures!