Christmas Recap

Better late than never! I'm sharing our Christmas recap today.

This year we hosted my family at our home in New Jersey!! Poppa, Aunt Jagee (Jess), and Uncle Greg with his cutie dog Lucy all arrived on the Monday before Christmas (which feels like a century ago already).

We spent mellow days at the house. Decorated a gingerbread house together and Aunt Mimi's classic Christmas cookies. And we got another extra dusting of snow on Christmas Eve! So fun!

Gosh these cookies were good!!!

We set out our milk and cookies for Santa, 9 carrots for the reindeer, and a crumb of cheese for Santa Mouse. 

And on Christmas morning we woke up to see that Santa had arrived!!!And loads more gifts set out under the tree.

There's just nothing like opening presents on Christmas morning as a kid. I'm convinced as parents, we're always chasing that feeling and trying to capture it for our own kids. I sure hope we succeeded. 

Both kids were very grateful and kind all morning which is an improvement from years past. No tears of disappointment is always a win!

We played the rest of the day.

Looked cute in matching clothes.

And enjoyed meals together.

The guys watched football all day - special treat for Dan's team - and we went outside for a bit as well. 

 

Jagee got us a special family gift (with approval from Marmee) of a soft serve ice cream machine!! So Jagee and Ivy tried it out for a coffee o'clock treat. Thumbs up all around!

We also had a puzzle going for the adults and also did gem painting ornaments - which apparently I didn't get any pictures of either! Darn.

And we ended the day with a delightful Christmas dinner together.

Uncle Greg and Lucy left the next day. It always feels so fast. I remember that as a kid, so much build-up and then it's over. We squeezed in lunch out as a family in between packing.

On Friday, Jess and Poppa headed back home and Dan and I loaded up the kids to catch a flight to Kansas.

The let-down of Christmas ending is always made better with the promise of second Christmas to come!

Hosting the holiday is a lot of work but I am grateful for our home which can meet all our needs with space to spare and new family traditions to foster. 

And a special blog shout-out to Aunt Mandy who steered the mastered the hosting with her expert planning and culinary skills.