So....we had a Christmas.

By now I bet you are thinking that I stopped celebrating holidays. But in a few posts, you will realize WHY I haven't been blogging.

On Christmas Eve, we weren't starting our big Christmas Eve party at my mother-in-laws home until later and my mom's big party was early, so we stopped by to say hello. When we were there, we snagged a picture of all of my mom's grandkids. Not all were happy to be in a picture.

At my mil's house, we ate and played and sang. Unfortunately, I was busy making sure my kids didn't tromp on people and they didn't get tromped on, so I don't have any pictures! That makes me sad!

WAIT! I found one.

We came home and the kids were promptly ready for Santa to arrive. So we read the Christmas story and opened our new Christmas Jammies. Jeremy and I have this tradition where every year we take a picture of our family in front of the tree. We did that and we made Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate (which is NOW a family favorite). Tess was so excited that she ran to bed and didn't say one word to us. Which meant Amelia put out cookies and carrots and caramels and almond roca for Santa all by herself.

Santa came. Here are his gifts pre-kid.

This year we didn't put any gifts under the tree until Christmas Eve long after the girls were asleep. I have a 14-month old. It's pretty easy math. I am wondering now if it was a non-issue. She never touched the tree.

Right after Thanksgiving, we had a Family Home Evening where we discussed why we have Christmas and what a wonderful gift our Father in Heaven gave to us. I am so sad that Christ has been taken out of Christmas in so many ways that we did TONS to make sure that he wasn't forgotten at our house. My dad helped me make this manger and we told the girls that every time they did something nice for someone else, they could put a piece of straw in the manger. They were so egar to be kind and do nice deeds. It was nice that on a daily basis that they were able to remember to give their own gift to baby Jesus. On Christmas morning before we could open the gifts, we laid baby Jesus in the manger and we had a family prayer. Then we discussed why Santa only brings them three gifts. The baby Jesus only received three gifts as well. I hope they remember these things.

Here they are with the gifts from the Jolly Old Elf.

And the gifts from us.

It was a wonderful day. All of our parents came to visit, we had so much love and happiness in our home. I was sad to see it end this year.