Our Holidays - Part 1

I've gotten so "out of the habit" of blogging that I find myself feeling estranged from it. Almost like a friend that you've meant to call, and you think about calling daily, but you haven't called in so long that it feels awkward to finally break the ice again. Is that weird that I have relationship issues with my blog? During the "8 Week Challenge" that I participated in from Oct. 30 - Dec 24 I had to blog or write in my journal daily. And I really loved it. I feel more alive and in touch with myself and others when I am chronically my life story in both my personal journal and my blog. Also, I HATE playing catch-up and having to remember what happened 2 weeks or 2 months ago or feeling like I can't be "in the now" because I have to finish telling a story from the past. Anyway, enough complaining and analyzing my warped relationship with my blog....I'm here to document my holidays.

We stayed home for the holidays. It was nice. Relaxing and low key. While I love getting together with large groups of family at the holidays, it was nice to sleep in my own bed every night. And we still got to see some extended family members who came to visit us.

We spent Christmas Eve with our in-town family: Eric's sister Debbie and her family. We spent the evening at our house. We had the Cameron Family's traditional Mexican Food fiesta. It was yummy! We had a fun night with short but sweet activities that the kids could understand and participate in. We acted out the Nativity, watched a short Christmas Movie about the true meaning of Christmas, told a Christmas story using little props about how some of the symbols of Christmas relate to the true meaning of Christmas, and sang some Christmas carols.

Renae as Mary

The Angels - Kendal & Kayla

Joseph (Colby) and Mary (Renae) greeting the shepherd (Kaiden)

and a sheep (Sadie).

Mason was representing all the Wise Men.

And little Kayla is an angel/shepherd/Mary figure.

She just loved all the costume props. Too cute

When our cousins left, the kids each opened a gift -- a new pillow and a pair of fuzzy socks. Then the kids left out cookies for Santa, sprinkled oats outside for the reindeer and hurried off to bed.

Christmas morning was all smiles. We had planned to just do stockings and Santa gifts before church (at 9:00 am) and then open the presents after church. But when we were done with the Santa stuff and saw it wasn't quite 7:00am we figure, what the heck...we had tons of time...so we went ahead and opened them all. It was actually very nice to attend Church on Christmas morning. Kind of brought it back to the focus on Christ. Then we went home and got comfortable -- no one was coming over and we weren't going anywhere. The kids (including Eric) played Legos most of the day. It was nice.

 It was a VERY, MERRY Christmas!