Christmas Eve
For the past few years, we've met The Gonzalez's (Aunt Karyn, Uncle David, Tristan and Bella) for lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Fortuna. The restaurant is never crowded, and it's a nice place to visit and exchange gifts. James and Audrey love their cousins!
It is a bit of a challenge to get a "good" picture of the 4 of them together, but we love that they're silly.
In the evening, we went to the family Christmas Eve service at our church. The service has been the same for several years, and we get to watch a re-enactment of the Nativity Story. They have real animals and a real baby. The service always ends with the lights out, candles in everyone's hands (flameless ones for the kids), and everyone singing Silent Night. It's really beautiful, and most importantly, the kids love it.
Christmas Day
This is the 1st Christmas that James has had any concept of Santa. We didn't talk to him much about Santa because we know he hears lots of stories from school and other kids. We didn't want to make things confusing by telling him a story that might contradict something he's heard, and then we have to explain why there's a difference, and then we have to be tricky, and then the whole thing spirals out of control. So, we let James decide for himself. When he asks us about Santa, we always respond with, "What do you think?" So, according to James, Santa lives in the sky; he come down our chimney and eats cookies; every present under the tree is from Santa. Needless to say, some of James' ideas are funny and original and some are the usual. The funniest idea he has about Santa comes from Mama not being very good at being sneaky. James asked Santa for a pinata (who knows why). So, I bought one when he wasn't with me, and put it in the back of our SUV. A couple days later, James was climbing into his car seat, and saw a Buzz Lightyear pinata in the back. Of course he got excited, and told me all about it (oh no, why didn't I take that out of the car?). I tried to convince him he was seeing things. He's too smart for that. So, after a confusing, awkward and vague conversation, James decided that Santa is so tricky that he put the pinata James asked for in the back of our car (I did not tell him that; I kept trying to convince him that he was seeing things).
Anyways, we had a wonderful Christmas morning. The kids loved seeing all the presents under the tree when they first woke up. We tried to alternate between Audrey and James, and have only one present at a time be opened, but their excitement took over and resulted in a little chaos. Happy chaos, though. We all had a fun day playing with new toys and watching it snow outside. And, we finished the day with a Greek Christmas meal. So yummy!
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