We purchased our first live Christmas tree for our front living room. It lasted in the house about 30 minutes before I realized it could be toxic to the cat, and since he's a big "green" eater, it had to go.
We visited the Legendary Santa and were lucky enough to see him come down the chimney. The Richmond Christmas parade was literally going through the parking lot of the Children's Museum when we finished, but we managed to get out for some Duck Donuts and shopping.
The kids both sang in our Night of Carols program at school and did a great job.
We walked down to take a closer look at our neighbor's light display.
We watched the Emporia Christmas parade with the Clements family.
The kids had a small part playing the bells in our church Christmas program. We had a covered dish supper afterwards.
School had Christmas spirit week which was really fun. Our favorite was pajama day.
Our Bible F.R.O.G.S. group traveled to the nursing homes in our town and sang Christmas carols.
We had our annual Christmas lights ride with pajamas, hot chocolate, and cookies.
We had a fun Christmas cookie party with friends.
We celebrated "Christmas Adam" by making 6 dozen cookies, packaging some for the community helpers who serve our family, decorated the gingerbread house, and had Christmas dinner with Ned's family.
Christmas Eve was spent in my hometown at Christmas Eve service, dinner with my parents, and presents with them. Once home and everyone was asleep, it was time to get to work while watching It's a Wonderful Life. Christmas Eve is my favorite and I love finishing the day with that movie. Ned ended up being busier than expected and even had to save the day when a piece of track was broken.
We spent Christmas Day at home. Everyone got up around 7 am to see what Santa left. We had a breakfast casserole then opened gifts from each other. Santa's gifts were a hit as were the Magic Bands and countdown calendar wrapped under the tree. They didn't know our Disney vacation was so close.
After a day of playing and resting, we had both sets of grandparents and Ned's grandfather over for dinner.
For the second year in a row, we traveled to Short Pump the night after Christmas.
We visited with Sam's Sunday school teacher to see her snow village and retell the Christmas story.
We took Katie and Parker to see the trains in Blackstone.
Our Christmas break was rainy and warm, so we spent lots of time playing at home. We had dinner with the Clements family on New Year's Eve. The kids went to bed on time and Ned fell asleep early, but I started watching a movie and actually made it to midnight. I'm not a big fan of New Year's, so it was a perfect night for me.
