We had a really fun Christmas this year! It was so neat to be able to experience Christmas through a child's eyes and see his reaction to all the wonders of the season. This year, we celebrated with lots and lots of family. Despite me getting some sort of bug, we all managed to have a great time.
On Wednesday night, we headed to East Tennessee to visit family in Harriman, Sweetwater and Oak Ridge. Hayes opened his first Christmas gift of the year on Wednesday night at Granny and Baboo's house (Hayes' newest name for Jim!)....
On Thursday morning, we went to see Wanell in Oak Ridge for lunch, then came back to Harriman to open presents with Donna's side of the family.
Cousins...
Jim made this amazing airplane shelf for all of the boys!
On Friday morning we visited Derek's Dad's side of the family in Sweetwater...
We drove home Friday during naptime. Our boys were pooped!
We spent Christmas Eve morning resting from our trip and I tried to make myself believe that I wasn't getting sick! We attended the 4pm Christmas Eve service at our church and my parents and Jenny Beth came along as well. Hayes really loved the music and did great through the majority of the service. Thankfully, it was a 45 minute service! Afterwards, we all came back to our house for chili and cookies and to exchange gifts...
We put Hayes to bed and Santa and Mrs. Claus got to work! Here is his stash from "Santa"...
Our little guy discovering his gifts in his Christmas PJ's...
We had a nice morning (despite the breakfast casserole that was a bust) relaxing and playing with just the three of us. After naptime, we went to my parents house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. We had lots of fun playing and singing Christmas Carols!
On Monday night, we went back over to my parents house to eat all the leftovers and to spend one last night with "Aunt B" before she headed back to NYC Tuesday morning.
There were so many fun things we did this month that I didn't get to take pictures of, but I still wanted to remember a few:
-This was our first year to get a real Christmas tree despite many naysayers! I have never been a fan of the fake looking trees that look like all the decorations came out of the same box from the trendy store down the road. AND our new house has a tree lot literally at the end of our street! We thought it was the perfect year to try it and it definitely seemed more "us". Anyway, Derek picked up the tree during his lunch a few days after Thanksgiving. Apparently things had not gone well with the initial set up since I came home to the tree in the front yard, a chain saw on the kitchen counter, and water all over the living room! Thankfully, the nice men down the street came and helped us out. Now we know not to ever buy a cheap tree stand and to take it with us to the tree lot for now on! I'm happy to report that the tree is still up (as of Dec 28th) and looking great!
-This was our first year to get a real Christmas tree despite many naysayers! I have never been a fan of the fake looking trees that look like all the decorations came out of the same box from the trendy store down the road. AND our new house has a tree lot literally at the end of our street! We thought it was the perfect year to try it and it definitely seemed more "us". Anyway, Derek picked up the tree during his lunch a few days after Thanksgiving. Apparently things had not gone well with the initial set up since I came home to the tree in the front yard, a chain saw on the kitchen counter, and water all over the living room! Thankfully, the nice men down the street came and helped us out. Now we know not to ever buy a cheap tree stand and to take it with us to the tree lot for now on! I'm happy to report that the tree is still up (as of Dec 28th) and looking great!
-Hayes loved playing with his little nativity set all month and called all of the characters "babies". He also had fun making all of the animal sounds. He thought the camels were horses!
-One night we drove to Sunnyside neighborhood to look at lights and he was amazed. He kept saying "OOOOHHHHHH" the whole time.
-We tried to see 3 different Santas this year and he hated them all! Maybe we will get a good picture next year...
-We went to a local church down the street from us that had a living nativity. We thought it would be one of those that you just drive around and look, but the next thing you know we were parking and getting out of the car in our pajamas! I'm sure they thought we were homeless... Anyway, Hayes was really quiet and seemed to really like looking at all the scenes, .........until he saw the cows. The poor boy was trying to recite his monologue as Hayes was mooing at the top of his lungs!
-Hayes loved saying "ho ho ho" for Santa and ringing the bells while we sang "Jingle Bells".
-One of my most favorite parts of the day was bedtime where we would read the children's edition of "The Christmas Story" and sing Away in a manger and Silent Night. It is so special to us to be able to teach him about baby Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas!
Isaiah 9: 6-7
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace."
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