Christmas!

The day after Christmas is so depressing. It is a holiday that nearly everyone looks forward to and spends hours and hours preparing for, but then 24 hours later, it is all over.  I think the day after Christmas is maybe my least favorite day of the year, followed by the day after my birthday.  At least I didn't have to get up the next day to go to work as many people did. 

Alena kept telling me about how excited she was for Christmas Eve so that morning, everyone slept in until 7:30 and we had a quick breakfast and got ready to head to Papa and Grandma's house.  We spent the day playing and Alena convinced Grandma to let her and her brother and sister open one gift.  After lunch, the twins went down for a nap, and the adults were actually able to play a game of golf (since children/grandchildren, our hours of game playing on the holidays has been cut short!). 

After naps, we all got dressed in our finest and headed to church.  It was a good reminder why we don't go to church on a weekly basis-it is hard with three little ones, especially when the two youngest want to get down and run around (and we even had two extra adults to help!).  Lauren loved the music and the clapping (although she usually clapped at the wrong times-like when it was silent!). She also left quite a few Kix on the floor to let God know she was there.  We survived the entire service, including the children's play, then headed to our favorite Christmas Eve location, The Mandarin.  It wasn't too busy when we got there, but during dinner, the place filled up very quickly.  The fish tank kept the kids entertained until our dinner arrived.  Everyone was so hungry and as usual the food was excellent!  Caleb even enjoyed some of Grandma's hot tea.  As is tradition, Jason called during dinner to join in on the fun.

We then headed back to Grandma and Papa's house to open presents.  As usual, they bought WAY too much but all three little ones took a turn at ripping the paper off.  During gift opening, we watched most of The Christmas Story before packing everything and everyone into the van for the trip home.  We carried the sleeping twins into the house and placed them in their crib while Alena picked out cookies for Santa.  She also left 8 carrots and water for his 8 reindeer and we checked the Santa Radar before heading up to bed.  Since both babies were already in bed, both Justin and I put Alena to sleep (we usually take turns).  We read the Night Before Christmas and the 12 Days of Christmas then kissed her goodnight. 

 

Alena picking out Santa's cookies

Luckily Santa had all the gifts wrapped so we just had to fill the stockings, place the gifts around the tree and get things prepared for breakfast the next morning.  The twins woke up around 7 and Alena was up at 7:30.  We opened our stockings first, then enjoyed breakfast before opening the gifts under the tree.  Later that afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa S arrived.  We watched the Polar Express, opened gifts, then enjoyed a marinated pork chop dinner, requested by Alena. 

It was a fun two days celebrating Christmas.  The favorite gifts were definitely the trampoline, the tent and tunnel, and the magnetic building shapes.  Although, I think I received the best present:  A new camera!  I am so excited to have a nice camera to take pictures with.  We will have many, many special memories in the future with our little ones and having a nice camera that takes good pictures is so important!  I make a photo book every year for each child, depicting what we did over the year, including pictures of other family members.  It's a fun keepsake that will now be even better because the quality of photos will be amazing!  Thanks Santa!