30 December 2010

Christmas Day

Here we are on December 29th (actually, I'm editing this on Dec. 30th), and I'm finally blogging about Christmas. Why? We haven't been busy, per se, but I have purposefully focused on spending less time on-line, which results in less time for my blog. I didn't want my kids remembering that I spent this holiday time on the computer. I wanted them to know that I wanted to spend time with them enjoying their new toys, games and movies together. That's exactly what we've done.

Christmas Day was fantastic. The kids were awake at 6:00, but they didn't wake us until 7. Considering how late we were awake, I was grateful for that extra hour. Truthfully, I heard them around 6:30, but I tried really hard to ignore them until they actually came in to get us. ;)

Christmas morning is always the same at our house. Eric went downstairs first, plugged in all the lights, lit candles, turned on Alabama Christmas and manned the video camera. I manned the actual camera, and the elephants bumbled down the stairs. Do you remember that kind of excitement? I do. I remember looking forward to Christmas like no other day of the year. My kids are definitely on that band wagon. I'm pretty sure I'm still on it as well.

We took our time opening gifts one at a time. We always begin by opening the stockings. I know a lot of families do the Santa thing on a huge scale, but we've always made Santa a smaller part of our celebration. He stuffs stockings and may bring one or two small gifts. This year he brought each child a coloring book and their stocking treasures. Santa had to get a little creative with Lukas' stocking since Lukas asked him for something we decided he couldn't have (Bakugon is too dark for the McEvoys). Do you know how much Easy Bake mixes are? They are EXPENSIVE(It's ridiculous). Santa found a box of 12 mixes that cost a fraction of what the mixes usually cost, and, voila! Lukas' stocking was stuffed! There was also a Webkinz sticking out of the top holding some candy. He was thrilled.

The rest of the gifts were opened with much excitement including screaming over cowgirl boots and jumping up and down over an American Girl doll from Grandma and Grandpa. We had to stop everything when Lukas opened his camera so that we could install the batteries. Lukas has probably taken 1000 photos in the past 5 days. I love it. He loves photography, and he seems to be pretty good at it. Ava has worn her cowgirl boots everywhere except for church (only because she missed Christmas Eve service and wore her Christmas dress on Sunday instead. Otherwise, she would have found an outfit to wear w/those boots to church). I think she would have slept in them the first night if we had allowed it. 

Our gifts were simple this year and few, which was fine. I prefer it that way. Even when our situation is less lean, we don't go over-the-top on Christmas. I was still so blessed on Christmas, and, while I don't want anyone to think that I'm blogging about a laundry list of commercialism, I got a gift that I want to share with you. It wasn't expensive, but it was the best thing I could have received. The kids chose a frame for me that says LOVE down one side and has three photos on the other side. Eric had their first day of school pics printed and put them into the frame. I love it. It is one of the most special things the kids have ever given to me. 

We spent the rest of Christmas Day enjoying family time. My parents are usually here, but they were at my aunt's this year. Eric's parents stopped by for a while, which is always nice. We played games since both kids received new games. We played with toys. We had a nice, but very simple, Christmas dinner. We watched The Santa Clause 2. We relaxed and didn't stress about anything. It was a perfect day. It was the kind of day that only comes around once in a very long while, and we are grateful for it.





2 comments:

  1. I LOVE hearing about your family traditions. So fun- Alabama Christmas... lol. I do think you guys are up way too early. HA! I put the gate up in our hallway so nobody will sneak to the living room that way we can buy ourselves some extra time. :)

    LOVE Eric's facial expression holding his gift. That frame is the sweetest gift. I love anything related to photographs. They picked a winner of a gift for you. I like Lukas' camera. Abigail's main gift was also a camera as she is obsessed with taking pics & videos and the hand-me-down camera we had given her was failing quickly.

    Looks like you had a super fun Christmas. It's great to get passed the "I got this, he got this, we got this" and actually hear some real memories. Thanks for sharing. Excellent blog entry!!

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  2. We always listened to Alabama Christmas when I was a kid. The year that Cassie and I got married, Mom gave us each our own CD (which was an upgrade since she had it on cassette). It is the first CD I want to hear each Christmas. Point of Grace's first Christmas CD is my second fave.

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