Christmas Memories

The fact that we are about to celebrate New Years is mind boggling. This year has flown by. The holiday season especially. I wanted to recap and document our Christmas season. Christmas has always been exciting for me, my favorite holiday for sure. Now it is that much more with my children around.

We celebrate all month long around here. We get decorations and trees up before the 1st. Then in mid December we leave to celebrate Christmas with my family. We drive up to a little town in New Mexico. We rent a cabin, play games, eat lots of food, and go snow tubing.

This year, oldest dude had no fear. He mastered all the chutes he was tall enough for. He handled the lift perfectly and absolutely enjoyed his day. L was super hesitant at first but after an initial ride with Dad, he was good to go. I want to remember the laughing scream he let out on the ride. You could hear him throughout the whole park topped off with a loud belly laugh. C stayed in the kids area and went down the kids chute several times. He was totally content just to play in the snow really.

On this trip we played Pie Face. Everyone had a good time of getting "pied" in the face, even L who normally isn't a fan. We took a horse drawn carriage to see Christmas lights through the little town. Everyone loved it even though L fell asleep. The boys rode ponies. At the pony place there was this adorable saint bernard that would roll over as soon as she saw kids so she could get a belly rub. We had breakfast at one of our favorite breakfast places, simply called The Log Cabin. It has the best French Toast there ever was. We also exchanged gifts and enjoyed some cocktails. N tried a sopapilla for the first time.

Once we returned home, we fit in lots of activities. We drove through our favorite neighborhood to see lights. This year's theme for their decor was safari. It was awesome. We also attended a nearby winter Christmas lights carnival. The lights were amazing...the carnival part not so much. We crafted, we baked, we decorated. Speaking of decorations...we put some extensive outdoor decor out. One of the pieces is a Santa that you hang from the roof or a window to make it appear like he is "falling". Every single day, C would ask Santa what he was doing and to get down from there! In his little two year old voice it was the cutest thing.

My favorite treat!

N made these cards to go with the cookies we drop off for first responders

this puzzle took us the entire month to complete lol

L's favorite Xmas song this year

Then for actual Christmas weekend... We do most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve. We go to mass and then meet up with family and friends to eat and open gifts and have fun. Christmas Day we wake up to see what Santa brought and enjoy the day eating and watching movies and basketball all while staying in our pjs. It's glorious. One thing I don't want to remember from this year is the fact that it  was close to 80 degrees outside. Yuck,

its not Christmas without some tamales!

I don't detail all of this to make everything sound perfect or without a hitch. Trust me ... there were plenty of sugar high meltdowns, tantrums, over tiredness, sibling altercations, over stimulation and a baby who did not enjoy the carseat on the long road trip. And of course there is also a huge void felt without my brother here... missing him always but even more so at Christmas time... But it is our memories.. our celebrations and I just want to remember it all.  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.