Christmas at Home

This year we were able to have our home Christmas on the real Christmas, and it was really nice. Since we had just made some good memories with all of the extended family, we were able to tuck into an East Texas Christmas and savor the relaxed pace. After one of our most busy semesters ever, it was well-timed.

The days leading up to Christmas were spent wrapping the last few packages, making hot chocolate for friends, watching Elf, It's a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story, reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever aloud, baking cookies, hanging out in the backyard (70's!), and planning out all of the food and treats we wanted to enjoy for the holidays. We had time to adopt the Tallon tradition of buying each other stocking stuffers (with our own money). This was so fun. We went to Target early on Christmas Eve day and did a few trips through the store in smaller groups to get stocking stuffers. The kids were so thoughtful about what they got for each person in the family and they were giddy for the surprises to be revealed. We attended Alpine's Christmas Eve service, doing a scripture reading as a family and dropping a good bit of wax from our candles on my lap.

Christmas morning came EARLY with little feet pitter-pattering at 3am!! Then at 4am. Then at 5am. By 6am it was finally ok to be up, but I needed some time to get things ready, so we turned on The Grinch, which was on our list for the season. After the movie, we opened stockings and everyone enjoyed seeing others discover the gifts they had chosen and bought. Breakfast was egg casserole, cinnamon rolls, and fruit. We also finished all of our Jessee Tree ornaments and enjoyed watching our German Christmas pyramid spin.

Opening gifts was so much fun. Everyone got some things that they really wanted and a few surprises -
Luke: Kaweko pencil, Hydroflask coffee mug, shirt, heating pad
Holly: Set of 3 silver rings from the kids and a Raclette machine
Isaiah: Football, wooden marble maze to build, Mario game, NASA sweatshirt, drawing pencils/book/paper
Noelle: New roller blades, 2020 planner (which my have been her favorite!), a felting kit, doll stands, drawing pencils/book/paper
Lucy: first big Lego set (which she built all afternoon), pom-pom craft set, a container of fairies, and a baby goat calendar

We enjoyed hot appetizers and cookies for lunch and relaxed for the afternoon. By the time the evening arrived and we were thinking of pulling together our first raclette meal, Luke and I lost steam and none of us were hungry. The kids were gracious to let us scoot that special meal to the 26th, which was a good call. We very much enjoyed it the next day. Luke even had the kid dress up and he did all of the prep. It was a perfect gift for me, encompassing good food, European traditions, and family memories! All three kids loved having their own little cheese tray and Lucy had hers in and out over and over, adding little bits of things and relishing her own little oven. We finished our celebrations with the first round of Catan (our gift from St. Nick). Having played the junior version quite a bit, we caught on quickly. Lots of laughs and silliness (only a couple of tears) and a fun night.