Christmas Wrap-Up (haha)

I needed a bit of time to recover from our trip to California, post-Christmas. This trip has consumed us for so long, so it's hard to believe it's over. Packing for it was exhausting. The trip was not relaxing (fun, yes, but not stress-free.) We did a lot of waiting...waiting in lines, waiting on planes, waiting on buses, waiting for weather to pass. So when we made it back home, I needed some time to regroup, reset, and recover. And relax!

The Rose Parade trip will be the subject for next week's blog post, as this week will focus on our Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve at my parents' house, with Grandma Deb joining in, as well. The butterball soup was excellent, as always (as was the rest of the food), and it was really good to spend the evening together with our closest family members, celebrating Christmas Eve.

Gotta read "The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve!

We knew Santa was going to be little full of goodies, so we didn't set out too much food.

One of the final nights of lighting the Advent candles and doing a reading

The warm glow is so comforting against a snowy backdrop...

Santa came!

The tree and the dog :)

We've never been a family where the kids wake US up at 5am to open gifts. It was a very relaxing Christmas morning, where we slept in for a bit, opened the stockings, ate a late breakfast, and then opened the gifts under the tree. Very calm and not chaotic...perfect!

G got up at 2am and built the two Lego sets he received on Christmas Eve...2am!! He didn't make an noise, so we had no idea he was up that early.