This year was our first Christmas at home. We decided to be grown ups and do our own thing this year. I did miss all of the family and commotion, but it was also nice to just be our family of four and create our own traditions.
Christmas Eve:
We decided to just keep it simple and make homemade pizzas for dinner. It was actually really fun and a great way to have Hudson involved. I made the pizza dough and the boys got to work making the pizzas. We got a variety of toppings to try which turned out to be really yummy. I think we will keep that tradition, especially while the kids are younger and can easily contribute to pizza making. Maybe when they are older we can do a nicer dinner for Christmas Eve.
After dinner, we read the Nativity story from the Bible. This was a little bit of a disaster. We tried to think of a way to get Hudson involved and listening, so we decided to use some of his toys/animals as props during the story. Bad idea, especially when Hudson took his dinosaur and roared at the baby Jesus. It was hard not to laugh through the whole thing, but it was definitely not as reverent as it should have been. Next year, we are investing in a real Nativity set not Hudson's animal collection.
We then let the kids open up their new jammies to wear, and sat around singing Christmas songs for a bit.
We put Hudson and Amelia to bed, and then went to work on setting up for Christmas Day.
making pizzas
Hud & Mia in their jammies - so cute!
finished this Santa gift for the kids just before midnight
Christmas Day:
We were a little too excited to see Hudson's reaction to everything, so we were up early. I'm pretty sure we will be the only parents up before our kids on Christmas. Logan thought it would be a good idea to have a fire going (first time using it since we moved in 2 1/2 years ago), so we rearranged some furniture and it looked so magical.
Hudson got up about 30 minutes later and we opened Santa/stocking gifts. It was so fun seeing his reaction to everything. We opened a few more presents under the tree, played with Hudson's new toys, and then left to have nice Christmas brunch at a friends' house. We decided to space out opening presents with Hudson which worked out nicely; he didn't get too overwhelmed and it made the whole day exciting!
After getting home from brunch, we got to Skype with Kate (Logan's sister who is serving a mission in Chile)! It was so fun to see her and hear how she is doing. We love that girl. She is doing great things in Chile.
We lounged around for most of the day, opened the rest of the presents, and went for a walk around the lake.
I don't even remember what we had for dinner. Maybe leftover pizza? I think next year we will try to do a nicer dinner for Christmas, or just keep with doing a nice Christmas brunch.
It was a great Christmas Day. Really simple and relaxing (we stayed in our jammies all day), but that's what we loved about it!
opening Santa/stocking gifts
playing with the kitchen
Amelia with some of her Santa/stocking gifts
Video: Hudson opening a present
