Christmas at Home

For the first time ever, we stayed home for Christmas, and it was magical! There is certainly something special about establishing your own traditions, within your own home, with your own intimate family. We certainly missed our extended families and the traditions that go with them, but it was a neat feeling to be home.

On Christmas Eve we invited a few church members over for dinner.  It was my first time hosting a Christmas Dinner, so I could not restrain from taking pictures of my cute tables. It was not much, but it was mine, which made it special.

Kids' table

Adults' table

Our cute little tree

Tradition #1: Pajamas on Christmas Eve!  Brendan and Hadley were both thrilled and Brendan literally said, "Mom, I want to go to bed! I want to wear my new Darth Vader pajamas!"  Sweet.

Hadley, who had been half-naked for most of the night, was ecstatic to put on his Spiderman pajamas!

Tradition #2: Hanging our stockings!

Tradition #3: Reading the Christmas Story and The Polar Express

Santa came!

Santa filled our stockings!

Christmas morning

We had church at 9:00 AM, so we took a break from presents, attended church, took a quick family picture, and then resumed opening presents!

Daddy assembling the pirate ship

Mommy setting up our game

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2011!