More Christmas fun

Christmas was so much fun this year. Up until this year, we have always traveled to one of our parent's houses for Christmas. While those years hold wonderful memories, we decided it was finally time to be a big grown up family and stay home and start establishing traditions of our own. (Also I was getting really sick of hauling presents back and forth, it is so much easier to be at home for all that.) Jon caved and let me get a real tree since we were staying home. It smells wonderful. Definitely brings back memories of Christmases from my childhood. Also it was so fun for my kids to go and pick it out together.

We were lucky enough to have my fabulous sister Beth spend Christmas with us as well this year. My kids love having visitors and they love Aunt Beth, so they were extremely excited that she spent the week with us. She was their favorite to sit by, read stories with, play with, etc the whole week.
On Christmas eve we started by Beth having the girls open one of the presents she had for them. It was a gingerbread train kit. We spent some time working on that together...Grace mostly just sampled the candy throughout the process.
 

Then we had a Shepherd's dinner (which is a tradition that we adopted from my family). 
We prepared food that the shepherds may have eaten and sit on the floor (that is my kids favorite part I think) and think about how the shepherds may have felt on the night of the Savior's birth, how they would have reacted to the angels telling them the news, how they must have been righteous men to be told to go welcome the Christ child. We had some good food...although it is probably a stretch to say it is all food they may have eaten that night. I would call ours more of a multicultural shepherd's dinner this year. We did have grape juice, cheese and crackers, hummus and bread, figs, and other nuts and fruit (all which may have been somethings they could have eaten). But since Jon's family traditionally does mexican food on Christmas eve (along with lots of other Arizonans might I add), we decided to have some fresh tamales that a sweet Spanish lady named Dora made for us, (they were delicious by the way). And we may have had some focaccia bread with fresh rosemary and balsamic dip too. Oh and a fabulous salad we wanted to try from the new Our Best Bites cookbook. Delicious.

After our lovely dinner we started a new tradition that Beth had learned about from one of her close friend's families. Each of us took a piece of one of my nativity sets, and then we took turns telling about that person, their significance to the Christmas story, how they may have felt, etc. And we sang some songs that went along with different parts of the nativity. It was really neat and the spirit was strong. I was surprised how well it worked even with my small children. We hope to keep that tradition going for years to come.

We let the girls put their mattresses on the floor and sleep next to each other on Christmas eve, they thought that was so fun. Christmas morning was super exciting for the girls as well. You can see by the joy on their faces in these pictures. 
We of course made them come wake us up and then wait until I put our Christmas caramel rolls in the oven and took a picture of them lined up on the stairs in youngest to oldest order.  We all got very spoiled and the girls continued to get spoiled throughout the day as Jon's family came over for Christmas dinner.
Grace and Addie got tons of princess dressups and Grace has lived in them from morning until night since that moment.

Addie wants to be a doctor  when she grows up so she got lots of doctor stuff and a pediatrician barbie. 

I am the only one who reads instructions I found out. So here I am reading the instructions on how to put the song castle together, apparently Santa's elves dropped the ball on assembly on Christmas eve. 

It was my first time cooking a turkey and really my first time cooking a big holiday dinner. It went well though I think, with lots of help from Beth and others. I brined the turkey and followed this recipe and it turned out yummy. Jon and his Aunt did find the giblets that I missed taking out of the cavity when they were carving the turkey...oops, but I am sure I am not the only one that has done that before. ;) Anyways overall it was delicious and the company was fantastic. We spent time opening more gifts and playing my new present from Jon, Just Dance 4. It was so fun, even Jon's parents got up at one point and danced to Rihanna, wish I had a picture to post of that but I was having too much fun watching and playing to take any, but I know others did...anyone want to send me any to post here?

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and friends and most of all felt the true spirit of Christmas this season. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that sent his son Jesus Christ down to the earth as the greatest gift he could have ever given each of us.