Wrapping Up 2013 in 2014, Pt. 3: Christmastime Is Here!

After all the shopping, performing, shopping, stressing, baking, shopping, driving, and not-sleeping that the pre-Christmas rush brought, it was nice to have a very mellow Christmas with our sweet little family. I have many friends who miss Christmases with their parents and love to travel to their childhood homes for the holidays. I can definitely see the appeal, but I have really come to love a quiet holiday in my own home, with my husband and children. Besides being less stressful, it is a wonderful way to draw closer to one another at the close of a busy year, and to build our own family traditions.

Like making this gingerbread house, for example (okay, technically, we did this the day after Christmas, but this is the second or third year in a row we've assembled a gingerbread house! Surely this is a tradition taking shape, yes?). No, I am not a baking genius; we buy the kit from the store. Regardless, it was really fun to assemble and decorate.

 

My only regret is that we waited until after Christmas to put it all together; with all the other holiday activities we had going on, it got a bit lost in the shuffle. Next year, I want to try and decorate a family gingerbread house before Christmas; it makes the kitchen look a little more festive.

Now back to our pre-Christmas celebrating: Nathan got off work just before noon on Christmas Eve day, so we decided to visit the Children's Museum Tucson while waiting for his work day to end. It's just a short walk away from Nathan's downtown office, and we thought it would be a fun and uncomplicated "last activity" before settling down for Christmas:

Not many pictures from there, but the girls did get to try their hand at watercolors while at the museum

The kids had a great time, and we had a great time with each other. After that, our Christmas Eve was unspectacular, as it often is...I'm sorry to say we don't have a lot of hard-and-fast traditions for Christmas Eve itself. We'd hoped to deliver some groceries to a family who needed a little help for the holidays...but we found out late in the game that the family had gone out of town for Christmas! Oh well, the good deed would have to wait. We settled for watching Christmas movies, making cookies for Santa, and tidying up the house.

Nathan and I have disagreed in the past about how many presents to put under the tree ahead of time. When I was growing up, my parents only put out presents from extended family members under our tree...until Christmas Eve, when they put out everything else (perhaps they did this to preserve the "Santa illusion," despite their otherwise lukewarm endorsement of the jolly old elf? Or maybe they just didn't get any of the presents wrapped in time...that's a real possibility too!). Nathan's family, on the other hand, would put out all the Christmas presents as soon as their tree was set up (usually on December 7th, his mother's birthday). As new presents were bought, they were immediately wrapped & added to the pile.

I think there must be a happy medium between these two methods, and we are tweaking the formula in our own home a little every year. This year, Nathan put out a large portion of our presents under the tree just after Celeste's birthday (more than half of them), but then I wouldn't let him put out any more until Christmas Eve. He was a little surprised by this notion of "holding back" gifts, but he was mostly a good sport about it.

And of course, the stocking stuffers are all from "Santa" and don't go out until Christmas Eve.

Then all that was left on Christmas Eve was for "Santa" and his "reindeer" to have their treat, and then go to bed and await the early-morning wake-up call.

The girls also each got gift certificates to Bookmans, our favorite secondhand store

As usual, the stockings were the first things to be attacked...

...but the rest of the presents were quick to follow!

 

 

I was very touched at the thoughtfulness of many of the gifts. Lots of the extended family sent the girls merchandise from the latest Disney movie, Frozen...which was great, because my girls are totally obsessed with that movie and love everything about it. I am thankful to have many generous and kind relatives (since the cousins on Nathan's side are almost all boys, I also suspect our in-laws have fun shopping for girls for a change!)

Nathan got some new board games for himself, but one gift he really appreciated was this "extreme dot-to-dot" book, which Lorelai found in a store and declared that "Daddy would like it." She was right; what a thoughtful girl!

Celeste loved all her Frozen toys, and she got a scooter too. Now she can keep up with Lorelai when she's zipping around the neighborhood!

Aurora is a huge fan of the Disney cartoon Jake And The Never Land Pirates, so she got a ton of those toys. Every time she opened a present, she squealed, "It's what I've always wanted!!!!" It was completely adorable every time she said it.

I got my aebleskiver pan...hooray! Now I can make fluffy Dutch pastries for my family whenever I want. Here's what my first batch looked like (I made them a few days later):

Serve them with fruit jam and dust them with powdered sugar. Yum.

They were delicious! I've made two batches since, and I sense I will be making them a lot in the months (years?) to come.

I also decided to reward myself for the weight loss I've had this year; I was in need of new jeans, so I went down a size for the first time in years! I was a little afraid of buying the "stretchy" jeans that are in vogue right now, but I have been very happy with them. They are actually quite comfortable, almost pajama-like. The lovely Grinch shirt was a gift from my daughters.

After lounging around for hours at home eating junk food and enjoying our gifts, we welcomed Grandma & Grandpa Barrett over for our traditional ham dinner. Grandma & Grandpa had some gifts for the girls, as well.

Those eyes...those eyes...

They each got some new pajamas, and also these creepy Furby Boom toys. Furbies are electronic pets that respond to your voice and touch, "learning" more of our language and forming nuanced communication...well, as much nuance as a pre-programmed little machine can have. The biggest advantage to the Furby Boom is that it can interact with an application on our tablet. Via the app, your Furby can have "children," eat, sing, take baths, and more.

As you can imagine, the girls were over the moon with these toys. Personally, I've never even considered buying a Furby; I always figured they were somewhat faddish and out of our price range. Now that they are here, I am happy they are bringing my children so much joy. However, their electronic eyes, their abrupt personality shifts, and their weird chirpy voices both annoy me and creep me out after a while. Oh well...I guess that's why they're not my toys.

Oh, and the grandparents included a lot of batteries in with their present. Bless their hearts!

We managed to fit in a game of "Apples to Apples" and "Quelf" with the grandparents (our new kid board games) before they went home. I'm not sure how much they enjoyed either game, but they were good sports. It was great to have everyone together for a little while. I love going to sleep on Christmas night, knowing how happy everyone in the house is. It's a great blessing to be able to feel this way, and I'm very grateful for this opportunity. I hope my kids realize how blessed and lucky they are. Merry Christmas!