Christmas Together As A Family

Merry belated Christmas everyone. It is Boxing Day morning here, and I am still taking in all of our Christmas day yesterday. I want to remember every moment, and never forget. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

In all honesty we were exhausted this Christmas because we’d had our whirlwind vacation to Disneyland before, and only got home at 12:30am on Christmas Eve. We were all looking forward to Christmas morning though. Evie still does not fully understand Christmas but she knew something was happening as gifts showed up wrapped under the tree at our home.

On Christmas Eve we went to family friend’s home and had our dinner there. Evie loved visiting with her little friend who is a year younger than her. She kept trying to encourage her friend to follow her, which didn’t really work as her friend does not walk yet. Jason was thrilled because his family is currently down and visiting, and it is always nice to have them around to get to see Evie. She got to open presents from her grandparents there too, and I was thrilled to see she received some new clothes to add to her closet.

Our night was crammed full as we also had to head over to my parent’s home as we planned to watch a Christmas movie together. Evie was in her Christmas jammies by then, and was extremely excited to see that her Grammie-Poo had bought a tin of popcorn. Evie was doing great at sharing, until I commented on her doing so and she quickly hugged the popcorn tin and said “All mine!” in a very sassy way. We watched For Better or For Worse: Bestest Present, which is one of my favourite movies from when I was a kid, and again Evie got to open a few more little gifts. Soon though it was passed Evie’s bedtime and we headed home. She fell asleep in the car, poor girl is still catching up on sleep from Disneyland.

Christmas morning I came down to the kitchen early and get breakfast going. Since my sister’s and I could cook we started making breakfast on our own, and we developed our traditional meals to make. That’s now continued over to my little family. We enjoyed cinnamon buns, bacon, hash browns, and other usual breakfast items. Jason got Evie up, and I filmed her coming down the stairs and heading to the tree. Somewhere I have a video of her doing the same thing her first Christmas. It may be something that I do every year.

Jason’s stocking was full of things he “wanted” – why is it so hard to figure out gifts for guys? –  such as a lifter and cheese slicer, and then random snacks he always loves but are rarely in the house. Evie was excited to go through her stocking, and figured out the concept of unwrapping things very quickly. No help from Mom and Dad this year. Her Grammie-Poo had sent over some things to be put in the stocking too and once she got the raisins from her everything stopped so she could eat some. We loved watching Evie’s excitement as she opened everything, she wanted everything out of the packaged right away so she could look at them, or try them on. We heard lots of “Thank you mama, dada” that morning.

We were able to squish a nap in for Evie before we headed out again to catch up with family for more gift swapping, and then to travel out to our big family dinner. I loved reading her Christmas books to her that are about the real reason for this season. As Christians we celebrate Jesus birth on Christmas, while it is all likely that He was not born on this particular day, it is still to us the real reason for this season. Jesus is our Saviour, and that is why we love Christmas so much. It was nice to stop and focus on this during the day with Evie.

Our evening wrapped up with us going to my parents quickly to catch up with my sister and brother-in-law, and to do our gift exchange before the big family dinner. In my family we draw names, and buy that person a big gift and everyone else a stocking stuffer. Makes shopping so much easier! Christmas dinner was amazing, as it’s one of the times each year a large chunk of my family all gets together. Though now with Evie’s birthday being right after Christmas we will be seeing everyone again soon.  The house was filled with laughter, tummies were full and overfilled with incredible food, and Evie was worn out thanks to all of her family. She definitely went to bed last night one happy little girl. I can only imagine that she was dreaming of family, and the little gifts she received, and Christmas carols going through her head.

It was a very merry Christmas.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. – Luke 2:11