Christmas Celebrating

We celebrated Christmas Eve and Day with just our family of five.  It was wonderfully low key and relaxed.  It was nice to celebrate in our new home for the first time (although it is the 3rd year in a row that we've been in a new home for Christmas...ha)!

After focusing on Char's birthday for the morning on Christmas Eve, we put the kiddos down for naps/rest time and started working on our big meal.  We had Swedish meatballs, homemade crescent rolls, green bean casserole, and my mom's famed Christmas star jello.  I loved using our new dining room and pulling our my Grandma Millie's china for the meal.

After we ate, we headed to the 4:00 candlelight service at FBCG.  It was a lovely service and I enjoyed having the girls with us to worship as a family.  My heart (and eyes) were overflowing as we sang praise to God for his unmatchable gift of Jesus.  Hearing the girls raising their voices with us...priceless.

We have a few established traditions, one of which is to open one gift on Christmas Eve (and guess what.. it's the same every year... christmas jammies!) and then grab some cookies and head out on a jammie ride to look at Christmas lights.

After the kids were in bed, Justin made us chocolate martinis and we sat on the couch and reflected on the whirlwind this year has been.  We reflected on God's goodness, His leading, and the way He continues to challenge and stretch our family out of our comfort zones.  We talked about the joys and stresses of managing three children, the wonderful and not-so-wonderful parts of both of our jobs, and the way that we've adjusted to never feeling adjusted.  In the end, we agreed that this crazy journey, the ups and the downs, all of the goodbyes and the unknown and newness and starting over and pain.. all of it is part of our story together.  And, goodness, it has united us in a deep way.  And for that, I am thankful.  We fell asleep with happy and thankful hearts.

We instated a strict no-getting-up-before-7-am rule for Christmas morning.  It worked for the girls but Charlie rebelled and had us up by 6:30.  We let the kids open their stockings right away.  I love love love seeing the joy on their faces as they discover the gifts we carefully picked out for each of them.

Who knew a pack of gum was this exciting?!

I forgot to get anything for Charlie's stocking, so it's a good thing my BFF send him one!  I threw it in there at the last minute and he was thrilled. :)

We ate breakfast, read Luke 2 and prayed together, and then opened gifts.  It warmed my heart that the very first thing Emma wanted to do was to give Claire the gift she picked out for her.  She had been asking for days to please let Sissy open it and she insisted that it be the first gift opened that morning.  

Reading Luke

Emma could hardly contain her excitement!

It was new clothes for Claire's American Girl doll. :)

Claire picked out a pretty throw for me.

Claire made Justin a new work bag.  *enter melting heart*  Not pictured - Emma picked out a hairbrush for Justin!  ;)

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, playing with new toys, eating leftovers from Christmas Eve, and generally enjoying time with no schedule. 

 It was so lovely and wonderful and peaceful and perfect.  Merry Christmas!

 

Dancing Queens

The girls' dance class performed in The Nutcracker over the weekend.  We were surprised by the production value of a park district class.. but the girls sure loved their big, fancy costumes and their parents loved watching them on stage.

Sugar plum fairies!

Cousin Lauren was in the same class... so fun performing together!

A very special part of the day was that Claire's kindergarten teacher, Miss Christensen, came to see the show and brought Claire flowers.  Claire was so happy!

Grammy and Babu came to see the show, too!  It was so special having them in the audience to cheer them on. We are so thankful for the way they encourage our girls. 

Festive weekend

We had a great weekend, doing some fun events in our town and in the big city!  Friday night we headed downtown to check out the Christmas walk and tree lighting in our new town.  We had pizza with some friends first and then checked out the parade, live nativity, first candy cane of Christmas to the mayor, and the tree lighting.  The Ellen show featured this event a few years ago.  It was so fun to experience it for the first time ourselves.  Hoping for many more years of celebrations here!  ;)

Justin's dad and stepmom arrived Friday night to check out our new digs.  On Saturday, we packed up the crew and took the train to Chicago for more Christmas festivities.  As soon as we sat down on the train, my mind was flooded with memories.  This was MY family's tradition every year that I can remember.  We would ride the train downtown, see the windows at Marshall Field's, shop, eat at the Walnut Room, and make sure to stock up on Frango mints.  It was pretty exciting to be doing the same thing with my own family many years later.

The girls have been asking to ride the train since we moved here.  So exciting to finally do it!

Our first stop was Macy's Marshall Fields.  

Chicago sign and historic clock!

Chicago at Christmastime is so much fun.  I love that our kids will know that same excitement.   P.S.  When did Claire get so big?!  

The girls loved hearing and seeing the story the windows told!

We headed to Millenium Park after deciding a 3 hour wait at the Walnut Room just wasn't going to cut it.  Maybe next year! :)

Checking out the bean!  Justin's parents had never been to Chicago so it was fun showing them around.

Stop for popcorn!

Sometimes I still can't believe we live in IL again.  There are pretty awesome things about it and also some pretty hard things about it.  But, this weekend definitely did our family good and sharing this tradition with our kids was really special.