We headed home from Kansas on Christmas Eve and got to celebrate Christ's birth with my family, too! I love holidays that we get to celebrate with both of our families!
Christmas we were expecting bad weather (that didn't come... no white Christmas *sniff*) so my family braved midnight mass with a two-year-old and a newborn, both of whom did surprisingly well. Mary-Claire even got a shout-out during the homily from our pastor. She'd gotten a shout-out from the Bishop during Sunday mass the day before, so she was already getting pretty famous in the diocese at an early age ;-)
We all had a wonderful time on Christmas Eve and Christmas day enjoying each others' company, and especially delighting in our two little ones. Seems like only yesterday that Julia was as small as Mary-Claire, celebrating her first Christmas, but this was actually Julia's
third Christmas! How crazy is that? We ate our big meal on Christmas Eve, which was great since Christmas day was that much more relaxing, with delicious and easy leftovers to eat.
The Christmas season ended a couple Sundays ago with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and we kept the tree and decorations up until last weekend! Although it's nice to have the house a little cleaner, we rather miss the magic of our tree. We got a new one as a Christmas gift from my parents that is so much bigger and fuller than our old Charlie Brown tree, and it kind of made me wish large, lighted Evergreen trees were considered to be a normal part of living room decor, instead of a seasonal decoration ;-)
I hope everyone's Christmas was full of blessings beyond measure!
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| Julia helped Mary-Claire open her presents. |
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| This was the Christmas/birthday gift we found for Sarah in Chinatown! Elizabeth chipped in, too. Sarah was thrilled. |
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| Erik and my mom keep exchanging this Obama present as a joke each Christmas. |
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| Elizabeth is continuing the tradition of giving "Aunt" clothing with her new niece. Julia has had something "Aunt"-related in every size, I think, from Elizabeth! |
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| Such dads. |
