This year we had a nice day just calmly staying home and enjoying each other. We had thunderstorms during the night, which continued through a little bit of the morning. We opened stockings which Clark helped Jeff hand out to everyone and ate breakfast. This year I made a sausage and egg bake and served it with pineapple. After breakfast and everyone was ready we started opening gifts beginning with gifts from family who were not with us. After we opened gifts from Uncles, Aunts, and Parents/Grandparents we took a short break. Then the kids exchanged most of their gifts with each other. We had a quick lunch of little sausages, cheese and crackers or buttered bread and the kids played with their gifts and waited to open the rest. Clark went down for his nap, as he was very tired. The kids finished exchanging gifts and we moved on to the gifts from Jeff and I to the kids and each other. This year, we again gave each of the kids 3 gifts represented by the gifts the Wisemen brought Jesus. We gave them Frankincense (a need), Myrrh (something to nurture their soul, creative side or help them "grow") and Gold (something they wanted or we knew they would really enjoy). About the time we started opening these gifts if started to snow. We finished opening gifts around 2:30 pm. When we exchange gifts only one person at a time is usually opening a gift. We enjoy watching and listening to each person who is the recipient. When we had finished opening the gifts everyone enjoyed their gifts and enjoyed watching the snow. We went outside at the end of the afternoon and played in the inch and half to 2 inches of snow before dessert. Their were several areas where the snow had drifted deeper, too. After a dessert of pumpkin bread and orange cranberry bread with whipped cream we watched Clark open his last two gifts and then we ate dinner around 7:00 pm. We had taco casserole and carrots. Everyone was very tired so we wrapped up the evening with The Christmas Story from Luke 2 and all the kids went to bed.
We hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
I love the 3 gift idea! I really want to implement that for next year. I feel like we often just waste a lot of money hurrying up and getting gifts for the kids instead of thinking it out....
ReplyDeleteThanks, Amy. Yes, we do have to think about the gifts we give a little more. We also have explained it to them and they seem to get it and are fine with it. We get other gifts from family members as well which makes it seem like they have plenty to open. Since we do stockings, too it makes it easier to get them a few small things they might want that fit in there as well.
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