The Noriega Family

We had some fun at Sienna's expense this year.  We knew she really wanted a bow and Hector is not the best at keeping secrets about Christmas, so Sienna thought she knew that dad was getting her a new bow.  We pulled a stunt straight from the movie, A Christmas Story, and hid a gift for each kid and didn't tell them about it until well after the gift opening was done.  

We got all ready to go to grandma's house after all the Christmas Morning fun and then the kids found one more envelop hidden in the tree.  It contained a riddle.  Once they solved the riddle, it led them to the back of the van where they found three gifts.  Sienna was so funny.  I could see her get so excited when she found the note; it was like Christmas had been saved for her...maybe she really would get her new bow.  Then the girls find all the big boxes in the van, but hers does not look big enough for a bow, so I see her get nervous.  We of course make her wait to open her box last.  We had them carry the gifts back inside and Estelle went first; she got a fun art board.  Then Natalia opened a big Harry Potter Lego set; she was thrilled.  Sienna was dieing waiting, so we finally let her open hers.  It was the bow she wanted and she let out a sigh of relief.  "I knew it, I knew it, I knew I was getting a bow!"  She then felt okay about sharing all her feelings from the morning.  She told us that she felt disappointed to not get the bow, but didn't want to feel that way because she was so grateful for all her other gifts and she loves Christmas and her family.  She was so cute about it and soooo happy.  Love her and her emotions and thoughtfulness.  What great kids we have!

The bow was definitely Sienna's favorite gift, but she was also really excited about her new basketball (it is blue), her multi-purpose camping tool, and her blue camo vest from Jodee.  

Natalia was must excited about all her Legos, her cooking book and new slippers.

Estelle LOVES her new slippers, she is so excited to have sewing stuff and her own Fitbit watch!  She is always counting steps now.  

Christmas morning is so much fun!  When my kids are grown, I think this is one of the things I will miss the most.  All the buildup and anticipation for Christmas morning is so alive with young kids; we love to let the morning last as long as we can.  We heard the girls up early, but they know not to come into our room before 7:00.  They came barging through the door the moment the clock struck 7:00am.  They already had their beds made and they were ready to go downstairs.  We, of course, torture them a little and make them wait as we get ready.  It drives them crazy, but they love it at the same time.  

They were not disappointed when they finally came downstairs.  Sienna found treats that our Elf left for us; they all love Fererro Rochers and our elf left us a huge tray of them.  They were very excited.  

Us adults had fun watching the girls go through their stockings that Santa left for them.  They get so excited about all the small stuff...and candy canes!  Some of the gifts in the stockings are wrapped.  Natalia had come up with a fun idea to play to play a little game with these gifts.  She made a dice challenge.  Depending on what number you rolled, you had to open the gift in a different or funny way.  Some gifts were opened with feet, eyes closed, with gloves on; it was a fun idea.  After stockings, we took a little break to eat our rice pudding for breakfast.  We may have had some pie too.  

After breakfast, we went to work on the rest of the gifts.  I love how excited the girls are to give gifts.  They truly love giving presents to each other.  They all made gifts for Jodee and they could not wait for her to open them.  They were more excited about that than their own gifts.  Sienna put a lot of work into some great wood burning projects this year.  She wood burned a baby Yoda for Jodee and was so excited for her to open it.  It turned out really great.  

The girls love to give gifts to each other as well.  We swap names each year and we help cover the cost of the one gift, but I am impressed with their litter generous spirits.  The made or bought with their own money other gifts for the sister they didn't pick.  Natalia and Estelle enjoy their American Girl dolls and Natalia was excited to get Estelle a bunch more clothes for her dolls.  Estelle loved it.  Natalia said she didn't want more doll clothes, but Sienna found her Harry Potter clothes and knew she would love it.  She did!  Natalia loves Happy Potter so much.  Natalia was sweet and really wanted to get something for Sienna but was having a hard time coming up with ideas.  Then she had the great idea to get her more cute wood for her wood burning projects.  And then there was Estelle's gift for Sienna.  She ordered it at the beginning of December on Amazon Prime.  We waited and waited for it to arrive (Estelle asked every day if it came yet; she was so excited to get it all wrapped up for Sienna).  First they moved the arrival date to Dec.17th, no problem.  Didn't come.  They they said it would arrive between Dec. 22-25.  Okay, not ideal, but we can deal with that.  Did not arrive.  Christmas was over, but we thought for sure it would be there a couple days after Christmas.  Nope.  Then Amazon says it may be lost.  Okay, start working on a refund because nothing has changed on the tracking number since we ordered it almost a month ago.  Then...we start to see that a package with that tracking number is finally being moved from warehouse to warehouse.  After another week...Now into January...Sienna finally got her gift from Estelle.  She loved it and both girls were happy.  Merry Christmas in January.  

Estelle was excited to get a sewing kit!  She has really been into sewing lately.  She opened the box and found some fabric, "My own fabric! Yes, I can sew whatever I want!"

I got Hector a few gifts, one was really big so I wrapped it as soon as it came and it sat near the tree for a few weeks.  The girls are were dieing to know what was in the gift.  Big boxes are just to alluring.  They could not wait for Hector to open it.  It was a really nice camping chair.  It is mid January now that I am finally writing about this and the camping chair is still in our living room because it is so comfortable.  We all fight over who gets to sit in it when we watch movies.  Haha, we all prefer it to our regular furniture.    

There were so many fun gifts.  I got a cute pie dish from Jodee and I cannot wait to use it.  The girls got gift cards from Grandma and they are looking forward to a shopping trip.  

Estelle got ballet lessons and she was so excited!  Sienna and Natalia got a gift certificate to a zip line course they have been wanting to go to.  I get to go with them, so it is like a gift for me too.  

I love watching the girls open gifts.  It makes me so happy and I love spoiling them a little at Christmas.  

The Girls seemed really happy with everything they got for Christmas.  Sienna was the only one that we could tell was a little bummed.  She really wanted a new bow for Christmas.  She loves to shoot bow and arrows with Hector and she has outgrown the one she currently has.  She was "covertly" looking for more gifts as we neared the end opening and then she would ask, "so, are these all the gifts?"  She was putting on a smile and she really was happy about the presents she got, but we could tell she was a little bummed at the same time.    

We had them leave all their stuff in the living room and we got ready to head to Grandma's house for more fun.  

Our Christmas Eve party is the highlight of the season.  At the beginning of December I told the girls that this Christmas would be a little different and that some of the activities we normally do, we will not be able to do this year.  The first thing they asked, "Will we still have our Christmas Eve party?  Will we still have the saran wrap ball?"  Haha, yes, those are the activities we can still do...and we did.

The girls all helped me cook, they still love signing up for different food items.  Sienna did the Jello this year and Estelle did the rice pudding.  They all helped with pies.  We had so much sugar food.  Our feast was delicious.  We ate earlier this year so that we would have time for pie later in the evening.  

After we feasted we had a blast playing our party games.  We did the guessing gifts and had some good laughs trying to figure out what everything is.  Natalia won the cookie face challenge.  We did a new game this year, and it was really fun.  Each kid teamed up with an adult and they we  took turns answering questions with our partner.  We sat back to back and we were given a Christmas themed word, then we had to write down the first word that came to our head.  If our answers were the same, we got a point.  Estelle was my teammate and we won.  It was great fun.  

The highlight of the party is always the cellophane ball.   The girls love it so much.  They are not as into the little trickets as much anymore, so I have to get more creative with what to put in there.  There was more candy and money and gum this year and they loved that.  They get very competitive, but are good sports too.  

We ended the night with pie and a Christmas movie.  The girls left notes for Santa and pie and they left their reindeer food out too.  They were really excited and bouncing off the walls, but eventually they went to sleep.  

We adults stayed up rather late (Jodee was not feeling great, so we made a quick run to the doctor to check things out after the girls were in bed), but we were really happy to all be together and to be celebrating Christmas together.  

It was a wonderful Christmas Eve and I was so happy to be with people that I love.  

There were so many Christmas traditions that we had to forgo this season due to the Coronavirus. It was the first year we have not hosted our Christmas Party, we missed the Bethlehem walk, Temple concerts and botanical gardens.   Luckily, there were still lots fun activities to help bring Christmas cheer.  We noticed that so many more houses had Christmas lights this year.  We have never seen so many houses decorated.  I think with people having more time while working from home and not as many events on the calendar, they all decided to decorate their houses.  It made it feel rather joyful when out driving. 

We did a drive through a light show early in the season at a park.  Then, a few days before Christmas we went with Jodee to check out all the houses in the surrounding neighborhoods.  There is a great neighborhood, where every house in the cul-de-sac decorates, and they go all out.  It is rather impressive and tons of people go to view the lights.  It was beautiful and we had a great time walking around discovering all the creative lights.  We also went to a couple houses that do music light shows.  We love sitting in the van listening to music and watching the lights.  It was a fantastic evening and really brought the Christmas Spirit.  

Bethlehem Day has quickly become one of our favorite Christmas traditions.  We always do it on the Sunday before Christmas.  It allows us to really focus on the Christ part of Christmas before all the hullabaloo of the secular Christmas.  Plus we all love to have an excuse to eat Lamb Kebabs ( I had to double the recipe from last year...and it still all got eaten).  

We make Middle Eastern food and the girls sit on the floor to eat.  They dress up in the Nativity clothes ( we have been using the same clothes since Estelle was a baby.  Some of the outfits are looking pretty small these days.  

In the past the girls have put on a Nativity play for us.  They decided they did not want to do that this year.  I told them to be creative and come up with a different way to tell the story of Christ's birth.  They made stick puppets and had so much fun creatively coming up with a puppet show.  They did a really good job and we all enjoyed watching them preform.  They ended up performing it again at Grandma's house on Christmas Day.  

It was a great way to spend our Sunday.  I love all parts of Christmas!