Christmas...that happened!

Okay, well, it's three weeks later and I am finally getting around to writing about our Christmas festivities.  To be honest, this was not our best Christmas.  I feel almost guilty to say that, because really, it's all about celebrating that God loves us so much that He became one of us, and how could that not be great?!  But, in my mind, I failed at Christmas this year!  I failed at having focus and at helping my kids to focus.  And, of course, by failed I mean I fell short of my own expectations!  Good thing we can all celebrate the love of Christ any and every day of the year!

On to more fun things than my confessional!  Christmas begins with the tree, right?  I am always anxious to get our tree ASAP after Thanksgiving.  I feel like if we are going to spend $50 or so on a tree, we need to have it as long as possible!  For the second year in a row we headed to Home Depot!  It seems so boring, but trying to fit in a trip to a tree farm is just one more thing to do.  Sidenote, the day after Christmas I bought a fake tree.  This Christmas felt SO busy and was a wake up call of the reality that, in the future, I want to simplify Christmas.  Buying a tree each year is one less thing to do, and we can still have fun decorating it as a family.  Plus, I really won't miss constantly sweeping up fallen needles and am stoked to have a tree FULL of branches that are nice and strong for the heavier ornaments!  Anyway, back to this year.  As always, we had a really fun time decorating the tree.  I pretty much sat back and watched the kids hang all the ornaments, and, for the first time, they weren't all clumped on one part of the tree!  Every year I get each of the kids a new ornament that somehow represents their year.

Abby was a star soccer player this year!

Seth got Spiderman (despite my dislike for character things) because he fell in love with super-heros this year!

Haley's love of horses was quite a theme in her life in 2013.

One of our very favorite Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses.  Good old Uncle Nate hand makes all the houses and we spend a fun day with family eating candy and sticking it on the houses!  This year Uncle Nate worked for hours and hours to create a template and make a gingerbread pirate ship!  We had so much fun (even though we really missed Auntie Laura being there with us) and are SO thankful that Uncle Nate takes the time to create such a fun day for us.

Getting started on the barn:)

Uncle Nate and Seth hard at work on the pirate ship

Last year we went to Streets of Bethlehem, which is a reenactment of the events leading up to and including Christ's birth that a church in a nearby city does.  It was by far the highlight of the kids Christmas.  We went again this year, so excited because of how much fun we had last year.  It's a really neat event, but wasn't quite the joyful outing that we had last year!  We got a little turned around on the way there, which always happens when I am in charge of the directions, and then Carey and I were annoyed with each other, which also always happens when I am in charge of directions!  Abby lost her beanie somewhere along the Bethlehem marketplace and Seth was whiny because he was really cold.  When we got back to our car, everyone fell apart.  I can't even remember what happened.  I just know I was crying and we were all super tense and irritable:(  Oh, on the way home the moon was really low in the sky and huge and orange, so I pointed it out to everyone.  Haley immediately responded with "No, that's not the moon" which broke the tension for Carey and I because it was SO ridiculous! 

A really fun thing that we did for the first time this year was going to Candy Cane Lane in another nearby city.  It's a whole neighborhood that decorates like crazy and there are tons of people just walking all around.  We had a great time walking all around and enjoying the lights (and imagining having a baby there with us next year)!

On to Christmas.  Christmas Eve morning we went to Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Steve's for a delicious breakfast and gift-exchanging fun!

They love Grandma Jackie:)

How cute are these kids?

Watching their cousin Brannon play video games.

We went on a walk and met a really friendly horse!

In the evening of Christmas Eve we went over the hill to an annual Christmas Eve party that my family has gone to since I was an infant.  We went Christmas caroling and ate yummy treats and played the l-o-n-g-e-s-t game of white elephant (or big elephant, as Abby kept calling it).  When I looked at my watch and it was 9:00 and we still had a 45 minute drive home, I had to let some of my plans go!  Normally I wrap all the of the gifts that go in the kids stockings.  I warned them on the way home from the party that it wasn't going to happen this year!  I also usually decorate the house with streamers and balloons so that when the kids wake up on Christmas morning it looks like a birthday party (you know...for Jesus).  Oh, and we always have a birthday cake for Jesus.  Yep, none of those things happened this year.  I had to let them go. 

Christmas morning we did stockings, enjoyed monkey bread and then got to work making breakfast burritos.  As is our tradition, we met our friends, the Hughes, downtown and handed out breakfast burritos and socks to homeless people (this year we stepped it up and had waters, chocolate milks, cuties, muffins and chocolate).

We got that box of chocolates at the white elephant game!  We laughed every time Jonathan offered someone chocolate!

Pulling the wagon of goodies!

We went home and opened gifts and had a mellow afternoon at home.  The kids played with their toys and then took naps (after such a late night)!  Carey and I set up Seth's bunk bed (his "big" present) and then got ready to head over to my parents' house.  We did more gift exchanging over there and had a delicious dinner.

Our cute Christmas poodie under the tree!

Examining Poppa Phil's gift!

When I look at it in pictures it all looks so great!  I think I just didn't feel prepared.  I don't know if it's because the season was so short or because I had "morning-all-day-sickness" for most of it or because growing a person makes me SO tired!  Who knows?!  But, the kids had a great time and there's always next year!