Christmas and New Years

We spent Christmas with my family this year. We drove to their house that Sunday before Christmas and spent the evening with my parents and brothers. We ate a nice dinner with a peppermint dazzler dessert, read the Christmas story from the scriptures together, and sang Christmas songs.

Christmas morning began with the traditional line-up to go in and look at our stockings together. That was followed by an omelet and muffin breakfast, which was then followed by unwrapping more gifts. There were lots of gifts with so many gift givers and receivers being present. In fact, about half the floor in my parent's front room was covered by nicely wrapped packages.

Our Christmas tree and gifts

My parents' Christmas tree and everyone's gifts (many
of which I couldn't even fit in the picture)

This year I made Austin the aviator hat he had told me he wanted previously. I also made an owl hat for Abbie. I then got fancy and tried lining them both with fleece, which ended up working out alright.

Austin with his new aviator hat

Abbie with her new owl hat

Nathan with our gifts to him

Nate's gift from me: a mandoline

I personally was delighted that for Christmas, Nate managed to find someone to fix my cuckoo clock from Germany.

My mom with her gifts from me and my brothers. Austin
is also holding his new snowball maker.

Unfortunately, our great lack of snow has lead to very limited opportunities for Austin to use his new snowball maker. He has gotten lots of use out of many of his other gifts though. He particularly has been enjoying the additional Duplo blocks we gave him and the Knex he got from his Grandma and Grandpa Scott; he loves toys he can build and create with. He has enjoyed coloring and cutting with the construction paper, scissors, and colored pencils from his Grandma and Grandpa Peaden as well. And he was much more enthusiastic than we thought he would be about the digital clock we got for him to have by his bed in his room.

After all the gift-opening, we didn't have too much time until we ate lunch and drove up to see my Grandma Peaden. After coming back from that, we had a very nice dinner together with my grandparents and two aunts on my mom's side of the family. That was followed by another round of gift giving. Luckily, Ben got a humorous gift from my parents to help him stay warm while he is out running in the cold. Christmas in our family wouldn't be the same without a joke gift of some sort.

Ben with his new mask to stay warm with while running

My brother Allan and his family had to leave that evening since they flew out to visit more family the next day in the wee hours of the morning. However, we stayed the night and then played racquetball the next morning with a couple of Nate's old roommate and brothers. We also went to the temple and did sealings with my family. Later there was a family game and dinner at Smash Burger with one of Nate's old roommates before heading home.

Nate took the rest of the week off work, so besides cleaning up our house, we spent time relaxing, seeing the latest Star Wars movie, and going to a family party with Nate's side of the family. We returned to my parents' place again on Sunday though to celebrate Ben's birthday and the New Year.

We were really disappointed at the great lack of snow that prevented us from pursuing one of our usual favorite activities during the holidays: snowshoeing. Since it was so warm, we ended up playing some tennis on New Years day instead. We are still hoping and praying for more snow; the lack of water this summer is going to very unpleasant at the rate we are going!