Christmas 2009

For Christmas this year, we celebrated early so Justin could be with us before heading into the MTC where he would spend the actual Christmas Day. The evening of Justin's farewell, Dec. 13, was our Christmas Eve. Every year we open the special presents that are under the Christmas tree in the formal living room. As per tradition, we open up our P.J.'s, have pictures taken in front of the tree sporting the new attire then gather together in front of the fireplace for Lonney to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to the family.

Afterwards, Carli sets out the milk and cookies for Santa, then it is off to bed with visions of way too much candy dancing in Carli's head (the candy addict, remember?). Then, far too early the kids wake us up and the fun begins...

The kids had a blast and Carli was the most excited of them all. Not about tearing into her presents and playing with her new "toys", but she couldn't wait for all of us to open our presents that she had picked out and bought with her own money. She did a great job with knowing what each of us would like and want. Plus, she did all the shopping on her own while Lonney was in a different part of the store. When the boys were really little, their Christmas was packed full of too many presents, and a comment was made about how excessive we were being with our kids. So, that got us thinking about trimming it way back and remembering the true meaning of Christmas. From then on, our Christmas consists of Santa leaving one big gift, then the kids get a gift from us, then they get a group gift from the siblings. If the kids have money that they want to spend on a gift for each other, then they do that also. Then of course they receive gifts from grandparents and friends. Recently, I read on a blog post where the mom stated that their kids only receive 3 gifts because Jesus received 3 gifts at his birth and if it was good enough for him, it should be good enough for her kids. I never thought of it that way, interesting theory though. Then in the late afternoon we give the kids a group gift. We wanted the kids to be able to open something on the real Christmas Day, so we left our presents to them and the family group gift to open on Dec. 25, so in essence they had two Christmases this year!