Christmastime at HOME

Prep work:

We had about 3 days to spare, but we made it home for Christmas!  First thing was first, we got our Christmas tree up - an entire living room with only a tree!  Not ideal, but I'll take it!! 

We saved this project that Santa dropped off early for us for when we got home.  John and I worked about 4 hours putting together this 5,000 piece dollhouse (may be an exaggeration, but at least 1,000).  It was intense!

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Eve morning we opened gifts from Howie.  He left us a nice note about loving being able to spend time with us again this year and that he was pretty sure they had all made it to the "Nice List" so no need to worry that night. 

Then we ventured out for the day - first stop: breakfast at the Knights of Columbus for the annual Christmas Eve breakfast party put on by the local radio station.  Papa Gary cooks the biscuits and gravy and that alone is enough reason to go!  It's a fun morning.. lots of Christmas music, good company, and joyful spirits.  One part of the morning includes asking any kids to come on stage and sing on the radio... Avery dropped her fork and ran right up.  She didn't want to let go of my hand, but she bravely got on stage and sang along.  Rudy wasn't going near that!  

Since we weren't operating at full-kitchen capacity and we still were technically renters, we took advantage of the stove at the condo and made cookies for Santa.  Of course we didn't have a table or chairs, but the lone ottoman worked just fine! 

Decorating some masterpieces...

And without a table, keeping this guy out of the cookies and icing was quite a chore!  But we managed and he was happy to scoot around with us all!

That night we ordered dinner from Bella Milano (my new favorite place to order family dinners!) and Gran and Papa come over to join us.  Rudy and Papa spent most of the night running back and forth from Rudy's bed and the living room.  They'd lay down in his bed, pretend to fall asleep and let out a few fake snores (10 seconds, max), then jump up (Rudy did most of the jumping) and run to see if Santa had come yet.  We'd hear, "Let's go check it out.. see if Santa come yet.  C'mon Papa!  Hurry!"  Then, "Nope, not here yet!  C'mon, let's go back to sleep!"

Posing in our presents from Howie... how'd he know we'd look so good in matching Christmas jammies?!

Call me crazy, but as I get older I sometimes think I like Christmas Eve more than Christmas. Everyone is so happily anticipating Christmas and so pleasant... the talk and excitement of Santa coming, the laid-back plans of the day, Christmas Eve mass (which we didn't attempt with our crew this year)... Christmas day comes and it's almost sad.  One month of Christmas season just isn't enough!  I'm always sad to see it end.  

The up-side of no furniture?  Plenty of room for Christmas presents and unwrapping and playing!

Christmas Day:
He came!!  The morning went by in a blur of wrapping paper.
Gran, Papa, Tony and Patrick came over mid-morning to open presents and have breakfast (pre-made cinnamon rolls and breakfast pastries... we learned to get pretty creative without having a kitchen!).  Then we spent the rest of the day and night at Gran and Papa's celebrating and spending time with family... what Christmas is all about!

I snapped a few pictures first thing in the morning, but then I was done.  I just wanted to spend the entire day doing nothing but enjoying each other...it'd been a rough few months.  Being home, spending time together, the magic of Christmas... BEST Christmas yet, by far.  I was moved to tears multiple times that day... I can't express in words well enough to describe how great it felt to be together and that we were getting back to normal, even just a little bit.  And starting that off with Christmas... well, it was just really special.