Christmas Again and Again

  We had already had Christmas at our house in Utah, but keeping with tradition, we had Christmas breakfast at my parent's house with Jen and her family.  We had a few gifts to exchange with them and spent the rest of the morning lounging in our pajamas.

 Even with all the candy around, Paige wanted to eat Grandpa's orange. :)

I love low key mornings!  When we were done, the big kids left to spend Christmas with their dad since it was technically Christmas Eve.  We spent the afternoon visiting with our good friends, Nick and Kristie. We were once again reminded how much we miss our friends!  It was so nice to be home with my parents and spend time with our friends.

The next morning, we piled back into the bus.   It was raining and gloomy, but we were happy to be headed to see the rest of our families in the Sacramento area.

While we were driving, I noticed how green and beautiful it was.  I didn't realize the lack of color in Utah in the winter!  It's white and brown and that's all!  I check my cameras at home to make sure my house was still in one piece and to see what the weather was like. I saw my sweet neighbors plowing my driveway on their Christmas!  I felt blessed to have such wonderful neighbors looking out for me while I was gone!

We didn't have as much time as we had hoped for at to my uncle Steve's house, but we were happy to see everyone while we could.

 

 I think my aunt Debbie and my mom look so much alike!

We had dinner and then went to see Jason's family at his sister's house.

 It was fun to see all these little ones playing together, but even funnier to try to get a picture with them all looking at the same time!

 We exchanged more presents with Jason's family.

 

It was stormy over the pass, so we ended our Christmas marathon with a 16 hour drive home!  It was stormy over the pass the northern way, so we woke up super early and went the southern way to try to beat the storm coming in to Utah the next night.  The drive wasn't too bad and well worth the time we got to spend with our loved ones.

Christmas Eve

Still playing catch up!  Christmas Eve left us with smiles like these:

We were so happy to be home with our family and part of years of tradition.

I snapped this picture of Jessica and Jason and she said. "Wait! Take one more!"

And got this one...

I love the connection these two have.

We tried out a new game that had us dying from laughter!  It's backwards charades. It's an awesome game to play with large groups.

We also had several leg wrestling matches!

Our horse drawn "sleigh ride" wasn't available this year, but luckily we were there with Miss B.  We loaded up and rolled through the neighborhood to look at all the beautiful Christmas lights.

I love my family and was so happy to be home!

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Jessica and I are a lot a like in some ways.  I am also a girl who loves tradition and my family!  I was so happy to load up the bus and be headed home for Christmas!

I have no idea how long car rides were survived before the use of electronics!   The little ones spent half of the drive watching movies while the older kids surfed the web and played games on their phones.

 We added a card table between the front seats in the bus.  It made a HUGE difference!  I wish we would have thought of it sooner!  It made it so easy to make lunch for everyone and was a perfect spot for Paige to sit and color.

The trip seemed to go by faster than ever!

I couldn't have been happier to be home and to be with those that I love!

One of the traditions I have grown to love is going to Jen's white elephant Christmas party!  I didn't realize how homesick I was until I made a quick trip to my old grocery store to pick up a few things for the party.   As I walked in I saw the familiar face of one of the grocery store clerks.  He smiled big and said "hey!" like "where have you been?"  I was in a hurry and just said hello and smiled back and I hurried down the familiar isles.  I almost got teary eyed as that comfortable feeling came over me.  I knew right where everything was and passed several familiar faces from the kids schools and an acquaintance from church who probably hadn't even realize I had moved.  It just felt so nice to feel familiar and comfortable and ... home.  Sigh.

Jen's Christmas Party is always a blast!  Good food, good friends, hilarious white elephant gifts, and lots of laughing!

It finally felt like Christmas.

Tradition

My family always celebrates Christmas a day early, with Christmas Eve on the 23rd and Christmas day being celebrated on the 24th.  It has worked out really nicely in the past because it allows everyone to celebrate the holidays together.  Being in Utah made it a little harder for the older kids to see Travis on Christmas.   We had agreed to send the kids out to Fresno where Travis was living for Christmas and we would celebrate when they got home.

 

As Christmas got closer, the kids didn't want to spend Christmas away from home and I was missing my family.  We decided a week before the kids were supposed to leave, that we would head out to California too and celebrate with my family a day early like usual, so we could all be together. 

 

Jessica, being the most sentimental of the kids, had a really hard time with the idea of not being home for Christmas. She loves waking up to her own Christmas tree, with just our family, going through their stockings and opening presents together.  All the kids agreed that it just wouldn't feel like Christmas at home and asked if we could celebrate Christmas early.  School was out on Wednesday and we were supposed to leave early Thursday morning.  There wasn't really any time to celebrate Christmas before we left.  The kids had school and Jason had work.  Trying to squeeze it in wouldn't feel like Christmas either. 

 

They suggested we do it on Sunday.  Church doesn't start until 1 PM so we wouldn't be rushed and being a Sunday it would feel like Christmas anyway.  It was Thursday. The 13th of December.  Guess how ready I was for Christmas?  I had done some online shopping and had been out shopping a few times, but I wasn't ready for Christmas.  The kids said they didn't care if they didn't get very many presents, they just wanted to be home for Christmas. 

 

So, we kicked into full Elf mode! Most of the kids had already been out to buy presents for their siblings with their own money and were excited to see each other open them. I went out and did a little more shopping.  The kids helped wrap presents and baked cookies for Santa (oatmeal raisin is Santa's favorite. Mrs Clause likes oatmeal chocolate chip, so we made some of both.).

 

Saturday night, there was a knock on the door.  We asked Ashlyn and Lauren to get it for us.  When they opened the door, there was a big Santa bag with Christmas pajamas inside and a note from the Elf of Christmas Eve saying that Santa knew we would be out of town for Christmas and had made special arrangements to visit them tonight! 

 

I have to explain the Christmas Eve elf.  Years ago, as I was getting ready for Christmas and wrapping presents,  I wrote Christmas Eve on the labels of the kids Christmas pajamas so I wouldn't get them mixed up with the other presents.  We always go to my parent's house on Christmas Eve and I knew we would be getting home late.  I put the presents with the kids pajamas on their beds before we left for them to open when we got home.  When they saw Christmas Eve written on the label, one of them, I don't remember who, was so excited to get a present from the Christmas Eve elf that we decided to just go with it!  They have been finding wrapped pajamas on their beds from the Christmas Eve Elf every year since then.

 

Ashlyn and Paige were very excited about the Santa bag and the early visit from Santa. They opened their pajamas and asked if they could use the cookies Jessica had just made to put out for Santa.    It was so fun to see her so excited and see the big kids play along.  This was Lauren's first year of having to pretend. :(

 

They put out the cookies and Ashlyn made sure we didn't forget the milk!  Everyone scampered off to bed. 

I went up a few minutes later to check on the sleep progress and was surprised to find off the kids in Jessica's room with their blankets and pillows.  I asked what was going on and they all looked at me like I was crazy.  "It's tradition.  All the girls sleep in my room on Christmas Eve.  When Paige gets a little bigger she can sleep in here too."  How did I miss this one?  Then I remembered how it started. 

 

Jessica and Lauren shared a room when they were little.  When we moved Lauren into her own room downstairs, she would sleep upstairs in Jessica's room on Christmas Eve so all the kids could come down together Christmas morning.  Ashlyn would always fall asleep faster if someone was with her.  In an effort to "hurry and go to bed so Santa could come", Jessica had Ashlyn sleep with her.  As Ashlyn got a little older, they were worried she would sneak out see the Christmas tree first because her room was right at the top of the stairs, so they all slept together.  Now, their rooms are all right next to each other, but they had grown to love the tradition of all sleeping in the same room on Christmas Eve.  I love that they love tradition!

 

 

We were done much earlier than in years past.  There were very few bows on the packages and not as many presents under the tree, but we were home.

We took our traditional Christmas morning picture in their pajamas with their bed head.

They couldn't wait to find the presents they had bought for each other.  Lauren bought Paige this cute shopping cart with play food.

Austin got an umbrella for Lauren.

Jessica gave Lauren an Orbies globe she had been wanting.

Lauren was excited to give Ashlyn a little girl Barbie and a Barbie outfit for her other dolls.

Jessica gave Paige a walking puppy so she would quit stealing Ashlyn's.

Lauren gave Jessica a couple of movies.  She is taking after Grandpa and starting her own collection.

Austin got another skateboard dec.  In true teenage form, he barely moved from this spot on the couch while we all opened presents.

I loved how everyone was so excited to help and watch Paige open presents and how nobody was concerned with what they got or didn't get.  They were excited to give and happy to be together.

Victory!