My whole life, my immediate family has celebrated on Christmas Eve with communion, a snack supper, Christmas movies and presents. It has always been our very favorite part of the holiday season. We knew once we “grew up”, got married and made babies this tradition would likely change.
This year was the first year we tried something different and I’ll have to admit it was quite fun. My mom made a fabulous breakfast spread the evening after Christmas and we had a sit down dinner instead of the usual finger foods around the fire. Ella didn’t quite make it to dinner, but since she doesn’t eat eggs anyway, we fixed her bacon and biscuits earlier in the evening and she became the meal’s entertainment.
In addition to the seven of us (Garan, Poppy, SD, Me, Ella, K & Cory), my grandparents came over to watch Ella open gifts and we all piled in the living room before two beautiful Christmas trees and a roaring fire. She had as many gifts to open that night as she had the day before, thanks to G&P, Kamin & Cory and Aunt Lane. She was so funny opening them. These are my favorite pics of the night.
Sophie finally got a present – “Daddy’s Little Deer”.
This was the line of the night. Although she specifically asked K for a Barbie car, when she began unwrapping she stopped and said, “Aw man, it looks like racecars!”
Again, courtesy of Lane, we had plenty of matching outfits for Ella and Lucy.
She also managed to rack up a paint set, Strawberry Shortcake pjs and a stocking FULL of goodies from Garan & Poppy, more Barbie stuff from K & Cory and piles of Bitty Baby stuff from Lane & Johnny. She was tickled pink and we had so much fun watching her rip into it all.
This Christmas was wonderful watching her budding personality take it all in. I’m sure I’ll be hard pressed each year to find a reason why it isn’t my favorite of all times, but she was so articulate and thankful for everything this year, that it made all of our hard work pay off.
I hope you enjoyed all of our Christmas recapping, I’m just sorry it took me almost three weeks to get it all done. Merry Christmas for the last time this year. Or last year. Or whatever.
