This weekend has been an amazing time of cleaning and organization and I feel so much better now that my house is out back together after all of the festivities of Christmas. I LOVE our Christmas decorations and am always so excited to put them up and so sad when we have to pack them back up. This year was no different, but I had time after cleaning the decorations to really clean and organize a few rooms in our house. We are having two large toys coming over to our house soon from my parents so we had to make space for them and have been cleaning out toys to make room. As I look at my living room minus the beautiful lights, I find myself returning to a few moments of Christmas that I really enjoyed! The first one started the day we got the Christmas decorations out. We did it while the girls were asleep so they woke up and saw all of the decorations out. Annabelle was excited beyond words. She remembered so many parts of last Christmas and was so happy to see Baby Jesus and all of her favorite ornaments on the tree. She spent A LOT of time studying the tree and I think she could tell you where each and every ornament was.
I also LOVED buying the girls a Little People Nativity Set. I decided to give it to them early instead of as a gift and I am so glad I did. When I first showed it to Annabelle, we read the story from the Bible and she acted out the parts with the people. She "re-did" that so many times and it was awesome to hear her rehearse the story of Jesus. When she talks about her memories of Christmas, she never mentions the gifts, but she is very ready to sing to Jesus again and see her nativity. I love that!
The other thing I loved about the preparations of Christmas was the fun Nutcracker musical scene we have had for several years. Each time I turned the lights on, both girls rushed over to lay on the floor and watch the scenes play through. It was so precious!
We even got to go to a performance of the Nutcracker at the Library and both the girls loved watching the dancing. The Nutcracker is a wonderful memory for me of my childhood Christmas celebrations and I love that I am able to share one of those memories with my cuties.
We had lots of places to go for our Holiday Celebrations, but some of the memories that I cherish are our Christmas Eve Eve celebrations with Italo's brother and family. We went to their house and made a delicious meal of Gnocchi, salad and zucchini. The kids were so excited for present time, but were very patient until we finished eating. Maggie attached herself to both Anthony and Isabella and they were so generous to give of their toys and time to entertain both of the girls.
After Maggie went to bed and the presents had been opened, the older kids baked Cupcakes and played until they were ready for icing! The had such a great time decorating the cupcakes and they sang Happy Birthday to Jesus with the most excitement I have EVER heard. It was awesome!!!!
We spent the night with the Frigolis and went home to rest up for our next party. Christmas Eve we went to My Dad's house for some delicious gumbo and good company. The girls had a little slumber party so we could play games and everyone came in to give them good night kisses. It was so cute seeing them with each person. Maggie was so eager to hug and kiss everyone! She is such a sweetie!
That evening, after we played a round of a new game, we had to leave to spend the night at my mom's. We set up for Christmas surprises and then we went to bed praying that the 2 late nights in a row would not make Annabelle as miserable as we were fearing. She did not have a good day the next day but we pressed forward and survived the day. I did REALLY enjoy Christmas morning with our Birthday party for Jesus and watching the girls play together with their Christmas surprises. We wore Matching Christmas jammies again and I forgot how miserably hot there were. But Annabelle seemed to get a kick out of it, so I think we will go for it one more year while their jammies fit and then we will relieve ourselves from the torture!
We were very excited to find out that my brother and his family came back into town sooner than we expected, so we enjoyed some extra time with them that morning. The girls were so excited to see more cousins!
After Christmas day was over and we were able to get the kids in their own beds, they sunk in to the familiarity and were more than happy to go to sleep. The next day, we spent the whole day together as a family just relaxing and opening our presents to each other. Canadians (or maybe the English) have a tradition of the Boxing day the day after Christmas and that is the say they open their presents. We think it is a good idea and think we will make it our tradition as well. Maggie was SOOOO over presents, she was actually crying when we handed her a presents. It took 3 days AFTER this for her to finally open her final few presents. It is fun to see them with all of their new treasures and I am enjoying looking at all of the pictures my husband took with his, I mean my, new camera. The girls even look at the camera when we set up the self timer because they love looking at the flashing light :) BONUS
Next year...we will HAVE to do something different so we dont have a repeat of this crying over presents! Poor girl.
But, they have lots of fun with their new toys and have been actually playing together throughout the New years weekend! Such a blessing to see since it is so rare!
MERRY CHRISTMAS and Happy Birthday Jesus!!
