This was the Christmas I'd been wishing for for years! In the years past, we have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day running around from party to party, exhausting the kids, exhausting ourselves, running on a very tight schedule, and breathing a big sigh of relief when it was all over.
This year was a bit different. Buds side of the family was out of town for Christmas, so we celebrated with them two weeks early. My sister worked on Christmas weekend, so we celebrated with my family a week early.
All that early celebrating left us with four days of simple family time. It was relaxing, not stressful, and blissful. Here's what we did:
Saturday we cleaned the house and relaxed. I had to go out and brave the crowds at JoAnn fabrics. The store wasn't too crowded, but traffic getting there was really bad! That'll teach me to do last minute shopping! We just hung out at home after that, and had a movie-a-thon in the evening (Muppet Christmas Carol and Elf), and ate pizza in front of the TV.
Sunday we picked up Kinsey and headed over to Great Grandma Lenore's house for dinner and a small Christmas party. On the way home, we swung through the drive through at Byerlys and picked up the groceries I had ordered ahead of time online. Talk about avoiding the last minute rush!
Monday, Christmas Eve, we slept in, went ice skating, went out to dinner (I'd never been out to eat on Christmas Eve before!). On the way out of the restaurant, Elise said "Berry Cwistmas, everybody!" It was so cute! She got quite a happy response from the other restaurant goers. We then came home and baked cookies. After we ate cookies, read the story of Christmas by candle light, and called the relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas, we let the kids open the gifts under the tree (gifts from us to them, and to each other). The kids were eager to get to bed at a decent hour, so they'd be asleep when Santa arrived! I love Christmas Eve after the kids are in bed! We bring up all the Santa gifts, open up a bottle of wine, put a movie in, and wrap until the wrapping is done. So much fun!
Christmas day the kids woke up and tore into their stockings while Bud and I slept in. When we woke up, the girls opened their Santa gifts. Elise's favorite was a makeup kit (that Santa thought was fake makeup, but wasn't!). Millie's two favorite gifts were a Lego set and Pocahontas doll. Kinsey came over around 1ish. I worked in the kitchen, slaving over a yule log. Seriously. It took 6 hours to make. I'm NEVER doing that again ;) I also made stew. Mmmm. We just hung out, chit chatted, and ate. It was a fantastic day.
The night is still young (sort of)! Bud and I are going to watch Miracle on 34th Street before calling it a night.
Merry Christmas!
Check out what other homeschool families were doing this Christmas,
here.
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