Thursday, January 6, 2011

Christmas 2010

Some highlights of our holiday season:

Children's Program at church
-Grace is in the 1st/2nd grade group this year, so for their performance, she had to say one verse of a poem by herself into the microphone (she says she was very nervous). She did a wonderful job!
-This was Jeremy's first time on the stage with his 3-5 yr. old group. We practiced the songs with him every night for two weeks leading up to his performance. He knew most of the songs, but he was like a deer in the headlights while on stage. Maybe next year, he'll actually perform.

Cookie Exchange
-I feel incredibly special that I still get to participate in my friend Nancy's annual cookie exchange. It is a gathering of teachers I used to work with at my former school. I always look forward to it- we eat, chat, fill each other in on what has been happening in our lives. This year, I made 10 dozen Chocolate Mint cookies!

Christmas Eve
-We invited Jason's mom to join us for our annual Christmas Eve dinner- beef tenderloin with a port sauce, roasted potatoes, and holiday salad. Before our meal, we read Luke 2 (the Christmas story from the Bible) together as a family. This year, the kids followed the story using one of our nativity sets.
-We attended our church's Christmas Eve candlelight service. I grew up going to church every Christmas Eve, so I can't possibly imagine celebrating Christ's birth without going to church!
-We opened up gifts after having hot chocolate and cookies. I got the best gift- Jason went way overbudget and got me my very first laptop!

Christmas Day
-After a special breakfast, we did stockings. Stockings were the only things that Santa left for our family this year (and every year from now on). Even though we didn't give Santa very much attention this year, our kids are old enough that influences from school and friends (and family) still left a huge impression. However, I feel like we did a better job of focusing on Christ. We used the advent calendar I got last year from my friend, Christa. This past month, we read through one symbol related to Christ during dinner (I posted about the advent calendar last year. Click here for more information). -Our friends, De and Jed, came over for most of the day to hang out. We feel privileged that we got to spend such a special day with great friends!

Boxing Day
-No shopping for me (in Canada, Boxing Day is like Black Friday here in the US). We had dinner with our friends, Aaron and Christa, and exchanged our 2nd annual White Elephant gift. The rules are: the gift must be less than $10, and it must be on display all year. The gift we got them came from Goodwill- it came in waaaaay under budget and was the 1st thing that caught both mine and Jason's eyes (it's an UGLY bright colored clown piggy bank, except that it's missing the rubber stopper).
Here's what they gave us:
Isaac Christmas
-On the Tuesday following Christmas, Jason's family got together at his mom's house for the Isaac's family Christmas. As usual, Jason's family was extremely generous- we are so blessed!

-All day long, we exchanged presents, ate, hung out- it was a wonderful, laid-back day together! Later in the evening, family friends, Bob and Dot dropped by. We enjoyed spending time with them, catching up.

Hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful time with their family this Christmas! There are more pictures in our photo album on the right hand side.

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