Christmas

Our Christmas started on Christmas Eve. Every year we go to Michael's grandparents house. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins and their kids come over. We eat finger foods and watch Christmas movies and visit. It seems to be the only time of the year that we see some of his family. Michael got off work a few hours early that day, which was nice because we didn't have to rush over there like we would have otherwise. We drove over with his parents and looked at Christmas lights on the way.

Christmas morning I woke up before 8am, and against Michael's warnings, I woke him up anyway. I think he was excited too, he didn't complain at all about the early rise. We went downstairs and opened presents. I was really excited to give him gifts this year and spoil him a little extra. He got me the Santa Claus movie set (I had never seen any of them) and so we watched the first two that morning. In the middle of watching the movies, I also needed to prepare the dinner food, so I made the apple bread and prepared the casseroles so they would be ready to just pop in the oven. I had made the pies the day before, so I didn't have too much to do until the turkey went in the oven. That evening Jaime, Jeremy, and Lucas came over. We had dinner, which is a lot of work but it's my one big meal of the year and I love doing it. Everything turned out well, according to them. I'm probably my own worst critic. After dinner we opened presents. It is so entertaining to watch a two-year old open gifts. So much excitement with each tear. The hit gift was the $5 play-doh fun factory, which he went into the kitchen to play with while we finished opening our gifts. When we were done, we followed him in to play with a little play-doh ourselves. After Lucas went to bed, we ate some yummy dessert and played a little guitar hero. Jaime and Jeremy had never played before and they did quite well.

We finished our Christmas yesterday at Michael's parents. His sister and her girls came over and we ate dinner and opened presents. We watched a couple movies, one of which was the Polar Express, which I had never seen. Those animation movies are amazing. I ate too many rice krispy treats and so it was a good time.

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas. It was so nice to spend time with family. Michael's off work all this week so we'll be playing and relaxing before he goes back to work and I start student teaching. We are also watching Zeus for Jaime and Jeremy and it's good to have both of the dogs together.