Christmas Day

Christmas landed on a Sunday this year so our morning routine was a bit different than usual.  My alarm went off at 7:30am and I was surprised that we hadn’t already been woken up by any excited children.  While I got ready the kids started waking up and we were eager to bust downstairs to check out their stockings. 

We bought our Christmas tree back in 2003 (after Christmas clearance) and we’ve had issues with a couple strands of lights for the last few years.  After Christmas we gave the tree away to a young couple from our old ward.  Guess we’ll be getting a new tree in 2017!  I HATE fluffing the thing so we paid Carly $10 whopping dollars to do it for us.  Justin and the kids did all the decorating of the tree this year – Jason found some random orange ribbon and wrapped it around the tree a couple times and then tied each end to a branch.  It wasn’t the most impressive tree, but that’s how we’ve always rolled around here.  A few years ago Santa started a tradition of hanging candy canes on the tree when he visits.  The kids love it.  

I love that the kids still get excited about the lifesavers, toothbrushes, and oranges they get in their stockings each year.  Santa keeps it simple – just like we like it.

Our Sunday church service was moved from 9am to 10am with only a sacrament meeting service and we were combined with the other ward that meets in our building.  After digging through our stockings we enjoyed a delicious Waffle Luv style breakfast and then headed off to church where it was nice to focus on the Savior and enjoy many beautiful musical numbers shared by members of our ward.

The second we got home the church clothes got thrown off and the pjs put back on.  It was time to unwrap all those gifts under the tree!  The kids may say I torture them by not putting names on any of the gifts I wrap.  Instead of names I’ve been hiding a small number or letter on each gift and I have a master list on my phone of which goes to who.  We only goofed on one gift.  I’m pretty sure my mom did this a time or two because I was a gift counter {shocker!} and sorted the gifts under our tree often - keeping close tabs on how many everyone had.

We told the kids not to expect much for Christmas.  We just got back from an ultimate vacation and typically keep things pretty inexpensive for Christmas anyhow.  As December wore on the gifts under the tree seemed to be multiplying on a daily basis.  As I mentioned Abigail was really excited about giving gifts to everyone this year and I really found some killer deals that I simply couldn’t pass up.  T-Mobile had a couple fun Tuesday promos in December.  One week we got $15 per line (we have five) to a website that sells fun and unique gifts and knick-knacks.  I found some cool stuff that we were able to get basically for free.  Then another week they gave $25 per line (that’s $125!) to Zappos.com.  We scored some awesome stuff that was already on sale – Sanuk sandals and a gym bag for me, slides for Carly, flip-flops for Justin, and a new pair of shoes for Katie.  Amazon also had some amazing deals – it seemed we got a package a day – putting our Amazon Prime membership to good use.

Anyhow, the kids felt like they were spoiled when quite honestly we spent very little.  Win-Win!

Abigail received some new film for her Instax and an album to hold all the Instax pictures she’s taken so far.

Carly was thrilled to get the converse and booties she really, really wanted – she had to use some of her Christmas money to pay for one of them, but has been very happy with her new footwear.

Jason got a couple Lego sets and a new basketball (since I ran over his the week before – totally not my fault since it was left loose and had rolled under the van).

Katie and Drew got a few clothes and some Magformers toys to share with the fam.

My Mom and Val bought gifts for Katie and Drew and sent money to the three oldest and candy to all.

Drew loved his Mickey hat and Big Hero toy.

Katie scored two Lego sets on her wish list from Grandma and Val.

The opening of sibling gifts is always so fun to watch.

Abigail bought Carly a cool earring holder (Carly had been using a earring holder she crafted out of Legos) and Carly got Abigail some fuzzy socks filled with candy kisses and gum disguised by being carefully wrapped in dollar bills.

Carly bought Katie a big package of pez candy with a Santa dispenser.

Jason was so excited to get his own dot-to-dot book from Abigail.

Jason picked out a mega hauler truck for Drew to play with all the hot wheels cars we have.

And Drew got Abigail a much desired baseball hat.

Drew seemed to have all the big boxes under the tree.  Abigail wrapped up a Nemo ball for Drew in this huge box.

Drew didn’t want to get clothes on after church so clearly he didn’t

Justin and I typically don’t exchange gifts, but I did buy him a pull-up bar that he’d been talking about wanting.  We won’t get into the drama he caused by snooping around in my Amazon cart and discovering that I was looking at them and then trying to passive-aggressively hint that he didn’t really want a pull-up bar after all, but little did he know it had already been purchased.  Nope, we won’t get into that at all. :)

Our family room was quite the scene by the time we had everything unwrapped.

The afternoon passed quickly and then it was time to head down to the Baumgartner’s to celebrate with the Fletcher Family.  Dinner was delicious and we had a great time visiting and exchanging gifts. 

We stayed way past bedtime and Drew was so conked out that he barely woke up as we brought him into the house and helped him into bed.  A very Merry Christmas indeed!