Home for the Holidays

Every Christmas since Milt and I were married, we have spent Christmas with one of our families in Utah or Nevada. This year we decided that rather than drag the kids (and obscene amounts of gifts from overindulging grandparents) across the country again this year, we would just spend Christmas here in Pennsylvania with our own little family. We were a little hesitant at first because I was pretty sure that at some point (at least) we would get home-sick and miss being around parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings...and we admit that there were pangs of homesickness when we'd hang up from talking to everyone on the phone. But it was good for our little family to get some individual bonding time, and we decided that keeping as busy as possible would keep us from having time to notice missing everyone. Since we were on our own for the whole month, we also found ourselves with a lot more time and decisions to make and we got to make some new family traditions, which was a lot of fun!

The kids in their Christmas outfits in front of the stockings

Some long-standing traditions that we knew we had to make time for were: re-enacting the Nativity, driving around and looking at Christmas lights, and singing lots of Christmas Carols (and we even got to go and hear some great Hannukah and other holiday songs at McKinley's school concert, which was pretty fun)! We even found time to do a family craft and help the kids make antlers to wear, which I'm pretty sure makes me eligible for a Mom-of-the-year award. Craft time + little kids using scissors = a very anxious Devon (I like Kennedy WITH her hair)! Anyway, we kept very busy and it ended up being a very full and fun month! Here are some pictures of the holiday fun-ness:

Dasher, Blitzen, and Ditzen

The kids at McKinley's school concert

Our little family Nativity (of which Maddox is pretty much guarenteed the role of Joseph every year for the rest of his life)

This year the kids also had a lot of fun earning money and picking out presents for each other from the Disney store, and it was great seeing how excited they were to give each other their gifts! We were hoping that they would learn how much fun it was to give presents, and it turned out so well that we think it’ll make a great tradition for every year. And since Kennedy was DETERMINED to carry the bag from the Disney store at the mall, we let her, but it was as big as she was, and it was pretty funny watching her try to drag/carry it all the way to the car! We saw a lot of people giggling watching her!

We also got to decorate our house all festive for the holidays, and it was great getting the Christmas stuff out of the moving boxes (finally), since last Christmas we went out to see family for most of the month and never got a chance to decorate. Now that we have an actual Chimney and mantle, we definitely had to get those stockings up! Here are some pictures of the house for my mother to see, so she knows I’m trying to at least attempt to follow in her impressive footsteps of Christmas decorating (although I’m pretty sure I’ll never have as many ornaments as her!)

And of course we can't forget the tradition of making Nana Jacki's sugar cookies and FROSTING them (or eating the frosting, as our children prefer to do). This is always a highlight for the kids, and it was nice that now I have TWO little girls to help me roll out the dough and cut the shapes out! They're pretty good at it too!

And last but not least, we've included a video of the kids frosting the cookies, because you just really can't miss hearing Maddox say the word "cookie" as many times as possible, especially since that is by far the word he says the best (and most often!)