The week before Christmas was a non-stop celebration filled with 3 birthday parties for Ellie, "pretend" Christmas Eve, real Christmas Eve, and then Christmas.
"Pretend" Christmas Eve consisted of Mike, Ellie, and me eating Christmas goodies and hanging up stockings on the 22nd, making the 23rd "Pretend" Christmas. We decided that lugging our own personal presents to various family gatherings would be less fun than having an extra Christmas with just our own little family. And Santa was kind enough to come to our house a few nights early!
Here's Ellie hanging up her stocking on the couch, which consequently, I realized not everyone does. Mike looked at me real funny when I told him to take down the stockings from our chimney/bookshelf where they were hanging so we could put them on the couch. I thought everyone did that! I realize all the Christmas songs and poems describe stockings as "hung by the chimney with care" but my family always hung them on the couch. How is a small stocking hanging from a chimney supposed to fight gravity and support the immense weight of so many presents earned by me, a girl who's been on the Nice List for 26 years running?
This picture is of Ellie, who loves cheese. And has apparently learned to cheese-it in pictures. I love this smile!
On Christmas Eve, we went swimming with Stacy, Bryan, and Ada at the South Jordan Rec Center which has: THE LONGEST LAZY RIVER IN THE STATE! Very cool! We all had a really good time, but I'm sad to say Ellie didn't retain much of what she learned in swimming lessons over the summer. That night we had dinner at my parent's house and ate the most fantastic Christmas Ham I've ever had in my entire life. I'm not exaggerating! It was phenomenal! Here's a picture of Ellie and Ada with Grandma Mona & Grandpa Ken.
After dinner, we drove up to spend the rest of Christmas Eve with Mike's family. Their family tradition is to read Christmas stories and eat homemade cinnamon rolls and drink wassail, which was all very delicious!
We woke up Christmas morning and enjoyed opening presents with Mike's family. His parents gave Ellie a gigantic Play House with 300 of those colorful balls you find in McDonald's ball pits. I think Ellie may have died and gone to heaven. She loves balls! (This gift now occupies our entire front room!)
This is a fun picture of Tiffany taking care of all 3 of her babies: Kingsley, Spartan, and Rusty. Such a good Mom!
Then it was back to my parent's house for Christmas Part II. Again, here is another fantastic Ellie Smile!
Ellie & Ada in their Christmas get-ups! 
And here is Ellie in her Play House. 
It was such a great Christmas and we're very thankful for our wonderful families! It's always nice to have family so close during the holidays!
I hope everyone else had an enjoyable Christmas season as well!
I don't know if you noticed, but I called you on Christmas Eve. That's because I saw you and your family leaving the rec center (you were already in your car). That's because our tradition (at least for the last several years) is to go swimming on Christmas Eve. SO much fun! I'm glad this one was so much better than last year!
ReplyDeleteEllie is so adorable! I love her cheese smile too! I've never heard of putting the stockings on the couch, but in my family we would put our stockings on the floor under the fireplace. Glad you had a great Christmas!
ReplyDeleteMichelle! I'm so sad we missed you on Christmas Eve! It would've been so much fun to swim with you guys!
ReplyDeleteI have never given it any thought but guess what-we put our stockings on the couch too! Of course the mantle can't hold all the stuff we/Santa shoves in them!
ReplyDelete