We celebrated our family Christmas on Christmas morning. Growing up my mom, sister, and I would always open our presents on Christmas morning. So that's what I am use to and I love opening presents on Christmas morning. So I want to keep this going with Sam and Ally. Paul and I think we have how we want to celebrate our Christmas as a family down and this year we didn't follow it exactly because I wanted as much time with my dad as I could have this year.
But our plan will be to go to a Christmas Eve service for church (hopefully our church will keep offering a 5 or 6 o'clock service. Then come home to eat dinner together, open a few family presents, and play a board game. Then bed time for the kids while Paul and I set up the Santa presents for the next morning.
Then on Christmas morning we will let the kids open their stockings and play with Santa presents (those are not going to be wrapped). After we see them open those Paul and I will start on a big Christmas breakfast. After breakfast is finished (and cleaned up) then we will open the rest of the presents. Relax at home for a few hours. And then head to my mom's to celebrate Christmas with her and my sister.
This year we didn't make church until 8:00 at night Christmas Eve so the board game we had planned needed to wait until Christmas morning.
Paul and I didn't get to bed until 12:30 on Christmas Eve. So when Sam woke up at 7:00 am on Christmas morning we put a movie on for him in the loft and gave him some Lucky Charms to hold him over for about 30 minutes until Ally woke up and to let Paul and I start to wake up. After Ally woke up we had Paul go downstairs to get the lights on the tree and the video camera up so we could get the kids reactions when they came down the stairs.
Sam was peaking over the gate in the loft and jumping up and down going "I see something I see something!". We asked him who he thought came last night and he would say Santa with the biggest smile ever on his face.
We actually don't have many photos at all because we were video taping and I wanted to just enjoy watching them open their presents. When they came down stairs they saw the following:
Ally immediately went for the baby doll and high chair.
While Sam went for the refrigerator that will dispense wooden ice cubes when you press a button on the door and the new wooden toaster.
After a few minutes with their new toys. They opened the stockings. Sam was so into it this year. And I was really sad that I forgot to put the geotrax electric trains in their stockings because Sam kept asking if Santa brought him a choo choo. Their stockings did have cars, hex bugs, stickers, hello kitty and thomas silverware and cups, crayons, and a couple of other little items for them.
After stockings were open we started on breakfast. Sam picked pancakes. We also made turkey bacon and cheese eggs. We had a huge breakfast and then Paul and I cleaned up while the kids played with more toys. They actually didn't have a lot of time to play with the toys they had received from my dad and Reva on Christmas Eve because we went right to church, so we pulled those out for them as well.
Around 9:30 am we opened up presents to them. This year in addition to the santa presents they both got new alarm clocks that tell them when they can get out of bed. Sam got play dough, geotrax, a mobigo video game system with two little video games. Ally got this buckle turtle (she loves buckles like on high chairs and this turtle has 6 little buckles she can play with), little fisher price snap and go dolls and pets, and a little people van with a baby and mom that she can play with.
I must say I always gave my mom a hard time about making sure everything was even for my sister and I and that everyone has the same number of presents to open. But I made sure to do that this year. I have a spreadsheet that lists what they got for Christmas Eve, their stockings, their Santa presents, and the presents to open under the tree. And I had it even within a few dollars between each category and made sure they had the same number of items to open. We might have gone a bit over budget on Christmas this year, but it was a lot of fun and I know the kids enjoyed it.
We were done with presents and let them play for a little bit. Both kids were pretty tired from the late night on Christmas Eve so they had early naps before going over to my mom's. While Paul put them to bed I drove down to my dad's. I wanted to spend time with him on Christmas. I must say it was really hard. It is so hard to know that this is without a doubt my last Christmas with my dad. I had such a hard time leaving him that day. He wasn't awake very much but I know that he knew I was there. I stayed with dad and Reva from about 12:30 to 2:30. It was a short trip but I wanted him to know I was there and that I loved him very much.
It was sad but at the same time I know that soon he will be in no more pain and next year he will be celebrating Christmas in heaven with God and Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment