christmas with a gaggle of kids – it is magic and chaos and wonder and wild and fun and exhausting all at once! this year with our 7 year old, 5 year old and 3 year olds was full of it all.

the kids and i made a little agenda for christmas eve and put it up on the kitchen wall. we had decided we were going to go have a bonfire up the canyon, just for fun. but as we gathered everything and bundled up i realised that outdoor fire was a great extension of our nazareth supper tradition. for christmas eve dinner we always eat food typical of the middle east and role play a little of what mary and joseph’s last meal before jesus was born might have been like. since they were walking from nazareth to bethlehem – a multiple-day journey, they stopped along the way and perhaps could have built a fire to warm themselves and cook food etc? we ran with it – after ian got a fire going in the beautiful sunny icy canyon, we talked about the journey to bethlehem and what that might have been like. we sang christmas carols and had hot chocolate. it was fun and also a little meaningful, too! a new tradition may have been born…

when we got home, i had to snap some photos of eve on christmas eve!

the kids played with daddy while i prepared our nazareth supper. i always make really yummy middle eastern food and we eat by candlelight. having a bit of a weighty conversation around the dinner table with four small children is essentially impossible, but we snuck in some insights about mary and joseph and the coming messiah and at least some food was consumed by the children and there was just one significant tantrum 😉 after dinner we lit our german christmas pyramid by the tree and sang carols together.

then it was time to write letters to and make cookies for santa, and make sure our stockings were ready for him!

after the kids go to bed on christmas eve is one of my very very most favourite slices of time in a year. i love getting everything set up, stuffing stockings, and hanging out with ian.

we had a rooooough night this year. the boys woke at 1:45 and spotted their stuffed stockings in their bedroom and had such a hard time going back to sleep. when i gave them melatonin that finally knocked them out, and then gabriel was so deeply sleeping that he wet the bed so we had to deal with that around 4am. i was sure they would sleep in after that but nope, 6am they were ready to party.

we did stockings first in their bedroom, like usual. my mom and dad had slept over in our guest room and came up to join the party when they woke to our excited voices. it was sooooo fun to have them around for a bit on christmas morning! the kids were thrilled about their stocking spoils and there was excited joy all around.

then we went down to the living room and found the gifts santa brought! lego sets and balance bikes!!

we launched right into siblings gifts, which is always the best part of christmas for me. this year the kids drew names, so they each just bought one gift for one sibling. it was special because they could save up to buy something really awesome and they were soooo excited about it. the anticipation of giving built up all through december and culminated with lots of delight and love on christmas morning. moses was out of his mind about the camera gave him; gabriel was pumped about the lego set from auggie (somehow i don’t have any pictures of that exchange!); august was delighted – as in squealing with glee – about the barking, walking, tail-wagging doggy that moses bought for him; and perhaps the biggest moment was eve opening her present from gabriel – a stuffed moana doll that gabe was just soooooo thrilled about giving.

we opened grammie & grandfather’s gifts next because they were headed over to my brother’s house to do another round of grandkid christmas morning. more very exciting gifts!! so much love and fun.

gabriel and moses couldn’t wait to give daddy a big gift they had gone in with me on, and then the boys started opening all the little gifts they had been gathering up from their own prized possessions to give each other. ian and i always give our kids just one gift for christmas and it’s always books – mo was excited to get his first set of chapter books.
gabriel and moses couldn’t wait to give daddy a big gift they had gone in with me on, and then the boys started opening all the little gifts they had been gathering up from their own prized possessions to give each other. ian and i always give our kids just one gift for christmas and it’s always books – mo was excited to get his first set of chapter books.
we took a self-timer family photo before leaving the house.

we went to orem to go to church! we always find a christian church with a christmas day service and take some time out of present-opening to go praise god for the gift of his son with other believers. we didn’t last long at this catholic mass but had a few moments of goodness listening in from the “cry room.”

and then it was back to home and playing with all the fun new things. (i was excited about my favourite chocolate from england that ian put in my stocking, and ian was excited about my gift of budgeting to him!)

we took our traditional christmas bike ride and the twins got to try out their new wheels! when we came inside, moses’s tooth fell out! it had been super wobbly and just popped right out on christmas day, which is pretty cool!

my brother josh came over for a while (he’d been staying at our brother’s house around the corner) and lego sets were built and the new car track was built and christened with some races … and we set out to clean up the glorious christmas mess (i like to leave all the wrapping paper out and scattered for a while – it just makes me happy).

eve had asked santa to bring her “hair stuff to make her hair pink” in her stocking, and he delivered! (she just insisted that she really wanted to be able to pink head to toe … so if she could paint her toenails pink there must be a way to get the other end of her body pink!) so we set up a little salon in the kitchen and i dyed my three-year-old’s hair pink! ha, it was so fun!

the kids helped me decorate our traditional birthday cake for jesus and all the provo cousins/aunts/uncles came over to sing happy birthday and eat cake with us. it was so great to see everyone and talk to them about their day. our house exploded with noise and fun and it was awesome.

christmas 2023 was certainly a success!!