christmas time

every christmas eve, we get together and celebrate with jesse’s side of the family. what originally began as just a najera tradition, has grown into the whole family (both sides). it is wonderful seeing all the different families together celebrating.

we try and make the kids wait as long as possible before they open their gifts. this year we got to about 8:30pm. they all tore into them with great delight. after about 3 trash bags full of wrapping paper, the kids took their toys and games upstairs to play. the adults did a gift exchange game. THAT was so much fun.

we had 20 people playing. there was a lot of stealing going on. jesse and i tag-teamed and left with some lottery scratchers, starbucks gift card, and a best buy gift card. we actually did really well.

the kids got a lot of great things too. clothes, toys and games.

we left around 10:30pm to get home and prep the house for santa’s arrival. we set out 3 chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk. yes…apparently santa LOVES chocolate milk. who knew?

we opened the fireplace doors and put the reindeer food out on the front lawn.

by 11:30pm, the magic began.

santa left jj a portable basketball hoop and he left ellie a doll house. he also filled their stockings with other neat stuff like candy, the movie “up”, and stickers.

i wish that i could somehow save the look on the kids’ faces when they first saw what santa brought them. it is priceless.

after we opened a couple more gifts that morning, we drove up to my parent’s house and had christmas morning there too. the kids opened more presents and i made breakfast bowls. the food took a little longer to make then i expected. i accidentally burned my hand while serving the bowls. i forgot they were hot and grabbed the handle. ouch!

overall, we had a great christmas. we are truly blessed with great families and friends. we loved celebrating with you!