christmas eve and christmas day, 2024

we had such a happy christmas!

on christmas eve, ian took the boys skiing and i stayed home with the twins at home playing and preparing. we took a nice walk around the neighbourhood with “baby jesus” and “santa.” 🙂

when the boys were back from skiing, it was time to head up to the canyon for our traditional christmas eve fire – the start of our “journey to bethlehem.” we got all bundled up and then hung out around the fire talking about joseph and mary’s journey to bethlehem and singing carols and then the kids explored a bit by the stream and through the woods.

back at home we had our “nazareth supper.” this year everyone got into character quite a bit, pretending we were at the last meal joseph and mary had before jesus was born while eating middle eastern food by candlelight. we lit our german christmas pyramid by the tree and sang our two favourite carols. eve was very invested in “being” mary. there was a donkey ride on moses’s back that i didn’t get a picture of!

after cleaning up from our supper, we got cookies and carrots ready to set out for santa and his reindeer and all the kids excitedly went to bed! then came one of my favourite parts of christmas – stuffing stockings and getting everything ready for the morning with ian.

the kids didn’t wake up tooooo early this year! we kicked off the day opening stocking in the boys’ bedroom and there were many treasures to be found in those big red socks!

then downstairs to the tree! santa delivered! – a remote control plane for moses, mini footballs for gabriel (we still aren’t totally sure why he was so into asking for lots of those…), a racecar track for august and princess dressups for evie! the remote control snakes that were in the boys’ stockings continued to be a hit, too.

the very very best part of christmas for me is sibling gifts – watching the kids give to each other! this year moses and eve had each other and august and gabriel had each other. we did all sibling gift buying at thrift stores. everyone was so excited to give and receive – it was the best! the kids also got gifts from ian and i (they always get books from mom and dad) and they got to give some gifts to their parents, too!

we took a break from gifts to go to church. i love this family tradition we have to stop amidst all the hubbub and worship jesus with fellow believers. this year i took the three younger kids to a catholic mass in orem.

then it was back to remote control plane flights in the garage, more parent gift giving, and my parents and brother josh came by for a while. it was so fun to share christmas joy with them, open the gifts they got for the kids, give my parents the gift i made for them, and just enjoy some time with grammie and grandfather!

evie asked for purple hair for christmas, and santa delivered! we had a little salon time getting all the dye on her hair, facetimed grandma and grandpa to open their gifts, then played with those gifts (the beads, hand drones and stomp rocket were all huge hits!). a few more gifts were exchanged (and we reveled in our delightful christmas mess) and then we headed out on our traditional christmas bike/scooter ride!

after we washed the dye out of eve’s hair, the twins and i made and decorated this year’s birthday cake for jesus! all our provo cousins came over to share christmas joy and then sing happy birthday and eat cake with us – the cherry on the top of a great christmas day!