Christmas at our house

The last of the Christmas decorations came down yesterday and every last box and bin was carted off to our storage unit this morning. I'm always so torn after Christmas - I love every bit of it so much, I don't want to let go. But I also love every bit of it so much that I feel like I want every reminder put away as fast as possible, so I don't have to keep thinking about how it's over. You know that feeling?

We've been slowly, somewhat lazily getting back into the swing of "real life" over the last week. Time off work, sleeping in, a date, lots of movie watching, BYU football and basketball, and too many treats have been mixed with thesis writing, laundry, appointments, a return to cooking, reorganizing and de-junking, and so on. It's been a delightful Christmas break.

And Christmas? Well, Christmas was absolutely WONDERFUL! The best yet, I do declare.

Our Christmas festivities officially kicked off on Friday night. The girls and I had been out running some last Christmas errands and were on our way to pick up Eric from work when I got a text from Eric:

"Want to go out to dinner?"

Um, yes. Very yes. Anyone who knows me knows that there are few pleasures more wonderful in life for me than getting to go out to eat. I love it with a crazy passion and it is a rare treat.

We picked Eric up and headed to Chili's. It pretty much doesn't get any better than that. Not that there aren't other places with better food. But Chili's has some pretty darn good food and it ranks high on my list of comfort food. There's just something homey and comfortable and sentimental for me about spending a lazy evening out in the loud, busy din of a booth at Chili's and munching on chips and salsa to my hearts content. Sometime in the middle of dinner, I looked around the table at everyone happily chewing away and thought about the prospect of the coming weekend spent celebrating my favorite holiday cozily at home with my peeps and felt like my heart was going to burst. Merry Christmas to me!

After dinner we headed up to spend the evening making gingerbread houses and going caroling with my aunt and uncle and their family. We had an excellent time laughing at our houses, spreading some Christmas cheer around their neighborhood, and drinking hot chocolate and chatting about kids and cars and memories of my grandpa who I never got to meet.

Christmas Eve morning, we woke to Elena pouncing on us in bed at a much earlier than usual hour.

"It's Christmas Eve!!! Wake up!"

We set out to take care of some last minute Christmas errands - a few last minute gift stops, delivering presents to family, grocery shopping, etc. We came home to ham awaiting us in the crockpot (oh, how I love the crockpot) and set up for a fancy Christmas Eve dinner.

(and p.s. a HUGE thank you to our "visitors" on Christmas Eve. I don't know if you read this, but I don't know how else to thank you. We were so touched and humbled that you took time out of your celebrations to think of our family.)

After dinner, we opened our Christmas Eve pajamas.

Then we watched Elf and had hot chocolate and grasshopper cookies, per Elena's request.

To finish off the night, we did the last devotional for our Advent Wreath and lit the last candle. Both the girls have been loving the candles each week during our devotional (oh dear... :)). The look on their faces was pure magic.

Then Elena helped set out Santa's cookies. She specifically picked out Grasshopper cookies for him. And reminded me no less than about twenty times that day that we needed to go buy them. It was a good choice - Santa is a fan of Grasshopper cookies. :)

Mommy and Daddy stayed up way too late (I'm seriously worried about getting any sleep as we have more kids and more presents to wrap!!) wrapping presents and putting the finishing touches on things.

As we were trying to wrap some glow sticks for a little present for Elena and Lily, we accidentally cracked them and they lit up. Ooops. They wouldn't last until morning, so we decided to have some fun with them. And it was like 1:30 in the morning.

Christmas morning, we were all happy to see that Santa came! Much to our surprise, we still had to go wake Elena and Lily up. Maybe next year... :)

Some of my favorite "looks" from Christmas morning

I think this is my favorite picture from all the festivities.

We were all so spoiled this year.

Lily's present from Santa was a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal. Lily loves "Pooh!". She was adorable - she spent most of the morning cooing and loving and hugging it. We could not take the cuteness - it was too much! :)

And the big present this year - Eric's new 90 gallon fish tank (forgive the picture - it's still in the set-up process - more to come later)- thanks to my parent's generosity, my aunt and uncle's and landlord's help retrieving and storing it, and my craftiness. I'm pretty sure I'm going to burn in Hell for all the lies I told over the last month and a half. But Eric was on to us and I had to throw him off somehow. :) Lies told about a gift don't count, right?

He got to upgrade from a 30 gallon to a 90 gallon, which basically means more room for more awesome stuff. :) It opens the door to a lot of fish that we weren't able to have before and should also make the tank healthier and hardier overall.

Lucky for us, our church wasn't until 11:30, so we were able finish most of the morning's fun beforehand. After church we came home and played with toys for a while before naps.

Eric has a special knack for picking out the perfect present for our girls. He's done it several years running now and I'm always amazed. Not that I don't think they'll like it :), but just that it's something I wouldn't have picked out myself and it's always the thing they love the best for the longest. It's uncanny. We'll go shopping for them and he suggests something that I think our girls will like, but that's doesn't necessarily seem like a runaway hit in my book. But I'm always dead wrong and it's the best present of the bunch. It's like a special dad super power of his. This year it was a basketball hoop and little squishy, plastic basketball. Both Elena and Lily LOVE it. They play with it every day by themselves and then again every night with Eric after he gets home.

Christmas night, we went over to Amy and Ryan's house to gather with a bunch of Eric's family for dinner and hanging out. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day. :) We had a delicious salad bar, a roaring fire, and the kids played and the adults talked and played games.

Lily loving on Pooh during the car ride over. :)

It was such a wonderful Christmas! It was absolutely delightful to spend it quietly, cozily at home. We got to do things however we wanted, with no one to please, but ourselves. And best of all we had time to sit and soak in our girls and the Christmas magic in the air. After such a hectic beginning to the month, it was just what we needed. We've spent so much time apart that it is really special for our little family to just be together making memories and enjoying each other.

Thanks to everyone who helped make our Christmas so fantastic!! We felt so blessed to have such bounty, safety, health, and peace this year. We hope yours was a merry one, too!