Christmas Eve and Christmas

Christmas was so much fun this year. I never knew Christmas could be more exciting for a parent than a kid, but it truly was that way for me.

We started a fun, new tradition this year. We've always done Christmas Eve jammies, but this year we added a "family" gift to go with the jammies. 

Christmas Eve gifts

The kids opening their jammies

The kids in their new jammies

To go along with the jammies we decided to start a fun, new Christmas Eve tradition to have a movie night. There was an extra gift filled with movie treats and a movie. This year the movie was new, but next year we'll wrap the same one and part of the tradition will be to watch the same movie every year; although maybe we'll mix it up a bit as they get older. We also ordered pizza and had a picnic dinner in front of the tv while we watched the movie. 

Movie Night Tradition

Then after the girls went to bed Nick and I went to work making magic happen! This year I really wanted to spend Christmas in our own home. Our last 8 Christmases we've either been in Bountiful or Gilbert with the exception of one where my parents came here. I didn't want to travel with all our gifts and I wanted to experience the magic of Christmas with just my little family. We decided to spend Christmas morning in our own home and later that day leave for Arizona. It worked out nicely. 

All the presents under the tree. I shouldn't have packed them in so tight because for four people and a dog it doesn't look like very much!

Christmas morning Nick and I were both awake and waiting for the girls to wake up. Any given morning they both wake up before us, but of course the one time we want them to wake up early they sleep in. When Shasta came downstairs, the first thing she noticed was the new kitchen that Santa brought for her and Shelby. She was so excited about it. It's not the most extravagant play kitchen, but she doesn't care, and it doesn't take up too much space which is why Santa brought a small one. 

This was before we set it up with a bow and tag to the girls from Santa.

Shasta didn't want to open any presents, she just wanted to play with the kitchen. We convinced her to open a present and when I asked her what she thought it was she said, "it's a book"! (See my Christmas Advent post for further explanation to why she said that). Much to her surprise, it wasn't a book! She was way more excited to open presents after that.

We took turns opening presents and while Shasta waited for her turn to come back around she played with the kitchen. Then when it was her turn we had to convince her to open another one with the promise that she could play with the kitchen once she was done. 

Waiting for her turn.

Shelby wasn't very excited about opening presents. She mostly just wanted to put stuff in her mouth. But it was still fun to help her anyway!

Someday she'll be able to sit by herself

Even Wedge got in on the action. He's still the most fun to watch opening presents. He knows exactly what to do and just dives right in. The best part is he can sniff out his own presents and doesn't go after anyone's but his own.

Wedge opening his gift without any help.

Eventually I want to make some Christmas stockings, but this year I was too overwhelmed with school. In the meantime I picked up some stockings for the girls from the dollar store. They were cheap and served their purpose all the same.

Afterwards.

Shasta with her loot.

Shelby with her loot

Once we were done opening gifts we got ready, packed up, and got on the road to Bountiful. We opened gifts with Nick's parents and hung out for a while so Nick could take a nap. We left their house around 8pm so we could drive through the night and the girls would sleep the whole way. A fourteen hour drive is pretty miserable so the thought of a two year old saying she needs to pee every ten minutes didn't sound like a good time. 

Two more thoughts that I want to record. We totally failed at leaving cookies for Santa. I never even thought about it until after we were finished setting everything up and I jumped on Facebook to see a bunch of "cookies for Santa" posts. I guess it's good that Shasta didn't really understand who Santa is since we never really talked about him and never went to get pictures taken with him at the mall. We also didn't write him a letter so I guess she really didn't have much concept of him. The other thing I want to remember is that this year we wrapped every person's gifts in their own wrapping paper. I figured since the girls can't read it would make it easier for them to know which gifts were theirs. I think it's something we'll continue to do since Shasta and Shelby's names are so similar it'll be easy for them to 'accidentally' open the wrong gifts (a problem we occasionally had growing up with my sister and dad and something I always worried about between my older sister and me (not that she was opening my gifts, but that I might open hers)). It could definitely help eliminate any confusion.

All in all we had a good Christmas. I'm glad we decided to spend it in our own home. I imagine this is how we will spend most of our Christmas mornings now. Especially as our kids get bigger and our family grows.