Christmas 2014

Christmas morning came early after our wild and crazy Christmas eve. Kids were up around 6:30ish and the festivities began. Everyone stayed the night here including Joanna, Jon, Jordan and my mom. They didn't all stay super long after morning rolled around but everyone was here for the beginning of the present extravaganza.

We took our time in the morning opening gifts and then made breakfast, lounging around in our jammies for the rest of the day. Everyone came back over in the evening for dinner which was laid back and almost unnecessary.

There's always such a lull after Christmas ends...

Christmas Eve

This year both Joanna and I were in new homes. We decided to share hosting Christmas Eve. We started at her house for appetizers and then we went to church for a candle light service and then ended up at my house for more food and games and presents.
It was very fun and loud and crazy. The kids played musical chairs for several rounds of presents and the adults had a White Elephant gift exchange. Everyone got Christmas jammies and went to bed late!

Nutcracker

Yay! Rachel and Royal and Jayden and Willow came to spend Christmas with us this year. We had the room in our house so everyone stayed with us. SOOO fun!
Months ago we decided to all go to the Nutcracker in Seattle put on by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. We have been going to this performance since I was about 12...so about 25 years! For the past 31 the PNB has done a specific version of the Nutcracker complete with Maurice Sendak sets. This was the last year so we made an effort to try and get everyone there for this last special season. Rach and fam flew in Saturday evening and got to our house around bed time. The Nutcracker was the next day at 1:00pm. Sadly, Rachel got food poisoning and spent the entire night throwing up and was unable to go with us. It was heart wrenching to leave her behind all by herself at my house to recover. :(

The Nutcracker was as awesome as it always is and we had fun taking all the kids to Seattle and out to dinner at the Cheesecake factory.

 

This was in the driveway...

 

This was 15 minutes later....

Christmas Tree Hunting

Thanksgiving was late this year and I had every intention of getting the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. :( The day after Thanksgiving (which is traditional for us) didn't work out either. So we went the next day. Which ended up being for the better....big time. It POURED Thanksgiving and the next day and was beautiful the day after. So much more fun in the chilly, sunny air! We measured our spot in the house before we left (we're smart like that) and found the perfect tree right away!

 

We picked up our Christmas wreath too!

 

We've enjoyed doing all our winter activities by Christmas tree light.

Reading our Jesse Tree nightly Christmas devotional

 

Game night

 

Cocoa drinking

 

Christmas puzzle. Last piece never appeared

 

We had fun helping Nana with her tree, too.