We had a wonderful Christmas this year! Due to a snow day, our Christmas vacation started a day early. I think we stayed in our jammies until 2PM that day. Gotta love snow days!
Our Christmas celebrations started off with Chad's family on the 23rd. We had everyone over to our house. We don't get together that often with his side since everyone is scattered out throughout the state, so it's always nice to be able to catch up. On Christmas Eve morning our first stop was...the clinic so Payton could get her stitches out. Luckily, it took like 3 seconds for the doctor to remove them. :) That evening we went to church at Bethany, the church I grew up in, and then my parents had their annual Christmas Eve gathering. Last year, for the first time ever, I missed out on church services and my parents' gathering. I was so disappointed to miss it. I know I've said it before, but singing "Silent Night" by candlelight is just magical. That is by far my favorite part of Christmas Eve.
Kaylee and Payton in front of Nana's tree. Ready for Christmas Eve service.
The fam :) Someone on facebook commented on this picture saying it looked like I have a New Year's Eve headpiece on...it sure does. Oh well.
Aaron and his crazy dog, Osky
Olivia and Payton...love this picture. Payton thought Olivia was pretty sweet and was loving playing with her. I love how their dresses kind of match...love little girl Christmas dresses!
We stayed the night at my parents' house on Christmas Eve and made sure that Santa knew Payton was there. :)
On Christmas morning we opened presents and then hung out in our jammies for most of the morning--it was great! Santa was very good to all of us. His big gifts for Payton were the American Girl doll Bitty Baby and a Leap Frog tag reader. She is so into dolls right now, and Bitty Baby was a big hit. She carried Bitty around most of the day and was very diligent about feeding Bitty her bottle. :) We left around 3:00 for my grandparents' house in Knoxville. We had a delicious meal (as always) and then opened presents. This was the first Christmas without my uncle, so that was definitely hard for us all. He absolutely loved Christmas. He would stagger his present-opening throughout the day, and the gifts would always be something dealing with a tractor.
Presents from Santa
Opening Bitty Baby
Opening gifts with Papa
So apparently my dad was cleaning out some things, and decided that Chad needed this Psychology of Coaching book--I'm guessing copyright 1960....Only my dad :)
Opening her stocking
Christmas tradition--reading the Christmas story from the Bible. My grandpa read it for years, then I read it for a few years, and now it's Aaron's job. I love this tradition.
Opening presents with Kaylee
Payton giving her great-grandma a hug
Payton and Kaylee are showing my grandma a video on the cell phone.
This Christmas was so much fun for us because Payton really got into it. It's so great to see Christmas through the eyes of a child.
Singing silent night is one of my favorite parts about christmas eve too!
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