Christmas Morning - 2023

 Taken a few minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve as Mr. and Mrs. Claus headed into bed:

Now that the kids are a little older, they don't necessarily wake up before dawn on Christmas morning.  They ambled into our room around 7:30 am and after making some hot tea for me and coffee for Steve, we settled into the living room to see what gifts had been carefully chosen and wrapped for each of them.

The kids take turns opening one gift at a time so everyone is able to see the goods ... 

The coveted lip mask set that she had on her Christmas list"

The laundry baskets are used to load their individual gifts into after opening and it works out perfectly!

I do not know what all the rage is for these finger skateboards, but this was a big item on Jack's list and he was happy to receive them.

Sam loves statement earrings and received a whole set of them.

Sophia has quite the collection of sleep masks but many of them were getting old and ratty.  It was time for an update.

This is probably my most favorite thing: for the last several years, Santa has brought Jimmy a special stuffed hedgehog with a name tag on for his beloved hedgehog family.  It began after he acquired "Hedgie," at Hobby Lobby when he was little.  He took that hedgehog with him everywhere and still sleeps with it to this day.  

Then came Hedgie's mom, Holly ... followed by his dad named, "Harold;" the sister named "Hattie" and this year, Santa brought the grandpa named "Humphrey."

Samantha is a big fan of Taylor Swift and I found a beautiful blanket with details from all of her albums on it.  I also found some trumpet music for a few of her songs and that was a big hit with Sam since she plays trumpet in concert band, marching band and jazz band.

An action shot displaying how tidy they manage to keep the living room now while opening gifts.  It makes for a much smoother clean up afterwards when we are preparing for breakfast and to have guests over later.

One of Jimmy's favorite NFL players is Justin Jefferson and I found a print (and then framed it) for his room.  He was pretty excited about that.

The girls spent their own money and picked out gifts for Steve and me.  This picture made us laugh for SO long!  Steve loves eclectic socks and white sunglasses so Sam found a pair of each.  This chicken socks are the best ever!

Later, we had family over for spaghetti and meatballs, a big salad, garlic bread and dessert.  With no snow in the forecast and a high of 54 degrees on Christmas Day (!), the kids spent quite a bit of time outside and I'm pretty sure that it broke some high temp records for the holiday.

Christmas Eve and Reindeer Food

 The weather was unseasonably warm for Christmas this year; definitely not a White Christmas!

On Christmas Eve, the kids headed outside to sprinkle their 'reindeer food" amongst the lights that we had shining on the house.

She is getting so tall!  She is already at least 3 inches taller than me and will probably grow at least another inch.

Yup, Sam and Steve were in shorts and Sophia was in her favorite sandals and socks.

A tee-shirt for this boy with some boots only because they were easy to slip on before heading outside.  

Ready to sprinkle her food!

Sometimes the kids do some light sprinkling ...

... and other times, they launch it high into the night sky.

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Afterwards, the kids headed back inside and opened their traditional Christmas Eve pajamas from us and posed for a picture.

Then, they settled in for a movie while Steve and I went next door to visit with our neighbors.  They had family in town and it was nice to have a glass of wine and catch up with them.

After the movie was over, we headed back home and the boys picked out some cookies for Santa.

And then Jimmy did the honors of putting the last magnet on our Countdown to Christmas:

With the kids all tucked into bed, the elves set to work making sure the presents were set out for the next morning.  Mia approved.

Christmas Cookie Decorating

With the kids off for Christmas vacation, we set to work making some sugar cookies and decorating them.  Over the years, we have perfected the technique -- the cookie cutters are set out in the middle of the table and each kid is given an equal amount of sugar cookie dough to work with.  There is only one rolling pin (one that I have had for SO many years) and they have learned to take turns.  

The dough has been chilled and is ready to go:

Jack is still learning about how much flour to use when rolling:

One of Samantha's favorite cookies to make is an upside-down elf, which will later be frosted into a reindeer.

Perfect rolling technique.

One of the most important aspects of rolling/cutting cookies is to proportion the cutters on the dough in order to maximize the number of shapes you can make.  Jimmy has mastered this.

Sophia was in her element all morning.

I laughed to myself because the kids all seem to sit in the same spots whenever I pull this table out for holiday events such as cookie cutting and decorating, coloring Easter eggs, etc.  The boys are on one side of the table (in the same spot) ...

And the girls are on the other side of the table, in the same spots.  Always.

Once the shapes are cut, I load them onto a cookie sheet and transfer batch after batch of the cookies to and from the oven.  

Depending on our schedule, we will either decorate the cookies later the same day that they were baked, or wait until the next day.  This year, we waited until the next morning.

I laid out a disposable tablecloth, which makes the clean-up so much easier, and set up plastic trays to work on with lots of sprinkles and colored frosting.

See?!  The boys sat in the same spots again.  Ha!

The girls spend a lot of time focused on details.

Sam's reindeer were done and she moved on to decorating an ornament.

Jack had the idea to make some pool balls.

The reindeer are done!  (I'm not sure why one of them was upside down though!).

Sophia made a pizza:

Jimmy was most proud of his snowman:

An elf and Santa:

The finished products, drying on the counter, with a few plain ones for those that do not care for the sweet frosting:

Making Reindeer Food for Christmas Eve

If I were to make a list of holiday traditions, putting together bags of reindeer food would certainly make the list.  

A few things about the event change from year to year, but there are others that remain the same:

1.  We always do it on a day when all 4 kids can be together.

2.  The kids take turns filling their bags with whatever goodies our Christmas Elf left out for them that she knows Santa's reindeer will enjoy.

3.  When the bags are filled, the kids write their names on a tag or sticker so that they know whose bag is whose on Christmas Eve.

4.  The bags are then moved to a location (usually a special Christmas plate) to be set out until Christmas Eve.

I love looking at the variance of the bags afterwards.  Some are a little heavy on the marshmallows and chocolate chips and others are more thoroughly blended/mixed with powdered sugar.  

Potter Park Zoo - with Lights!

On a whim, for something a little different, we decided to take the kids to see our local zoo in Lansing all lit up with lights.  Normally, we don't really consider visiting the zoo in the winter, but we figured that it would be special to walk around and see the thousands of lights that were strung up around the grounds.  

We had an early dinner, dressed warmly and then headed out in hopes of seeing lots of lights and (hopefully) some animals.

One of the kids offered to take our picture:

There hasn't been much snow yet this season -- just a little bit in November -- so everyone was able to just wear shoes for comfortable walking.

We didn't get to see many animals at all, but there were several lighted displays, like this one, that made for a good photo op.

Jack, just hanging out among the trees:

I love this gazebo that is in the middle of the zoo so the kids obliged with one more photo:

All in all, we made a few great memories while we were there, but all us decided together on the way home that we would like to try a different location next year to see lights.  It was kind of pricey for our family of 6 and without being able to see any animals while we were there, it wasn't quite as much fun as it could have been ...

North Pole Breakfast - 2023

Another annual tradition that we have is welcoming our elf back from the North Pole around December 1st each year.  As the kids get older, I wonder just how long the magic will continue to last -- my hope is FOREVER -- and I am relishing each year that I have left with them to keep it alive.  

Christmas Catherine has very few antics/tricks that she repeats from year to year, but one thing that never changes is her North Pole Breakfast.  She arrives back, with her suitcase in tow, and leaves a note to remind the kids to be on their best behavior over the next month.  She sets out some breakfast goodies and juice and the holiday season begins.

This year, her spread included some mini donuts/donut holes, chocolate chip muffins, yogurt parfaits grapes and orange juice.

She even brought a mini tree with her decorated with mini penguins, which Sophia later moved up to her room for a little Christmas spirit and decoration.

Given that December 1st was a Friday, the kids were up bright and early for school (it was still dark outside) so that everyone could eat before their drop-offs / bus pick-ups.

We still have three different departure times in our household on school days: Samantha leaves for Jazz Band (a 'zero-hour' elective) at 6:30 am with Steve; Sophia is picked up by her bus at 7:00 am and the boys are picked up by their bus at 8:00 am.  It may seem a bit crazy and chaotic but I have grown to enjoy this schedule because the staggered form of it allows me time in between to make sure that everyone has a lunch / breakfast / snack / water bottle, etc.