This Christmas we had our family celebration a few days early. We got together on Tuesday the 22nd for our annual "Christmas Eve" party. Gary had to work that night so he wasn't able to make it:( We started out with out traditional foods that include tamales and homemade chicken and dumplin's. And if I may say..... the dumpling's were super scrumptious!! Even better than last years'! After dinner we had (or attempted to have) a spiritual program. Generally we sing hymns and share thoughts of the Savior and what He means to us. It was very chaotic though, this year, with Rafe and the 3 one year olds. We might have to do things a little differently next year!
After the program we went caroling to three different families and then came back home to put together a couple of boxes with Christmas dinner for two families in our area. Then while Rick tended the kids we secretly delivered them to our neighbors' doors.
Afterwards we came back to the house for pie and opening of presents! It was a great night with good feelings and joy in being together as a family:)
Rafe, Scout, and Haivyn, Henry was sleeping
Sarah and Skylar
Rick and I
Kaitlyn and Alyssia
Rick and John
On Christmas Eve, Gary joined us for a turkey dinner with all the trimmings! It was a little strange having a huge dinner for just the three of us but we had a very nice night. We read some favorite Christmas stories and ended the night by watching Christmas Vacation. Brach and Kendra came by late (from having Christmas Eve celebrations with Brach's family) and set up camp in the basement. They didn't want to make the late night trek to Pleasant Grove so they stayed with us:) We loved that thought because we got to see the delight on the kids' faces with all the gifts Santa brought the next morning!
We watched them for a little while and then let them have some family time while Rick, Gary and I opened presents by our family room tree. We all took turns opening gifts and it was very nice! We had a wonderful Christmas breakfast of baked orange french toast, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, juice and hot chocolate. It filled us up clear til dinner time! Skylar and Sarah joined us later in the afternoon and we had a nice ham dinner with games afterwards. It was a whirlwind kind of a day with a lot of time in the kitchen baking, cleaning, preparing, baking, and cleaning again.
A wonderful holiday week:-)
Max the pup
Grandpa and Scout
Rafe with his John Wayne gun
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