Christmas - part 2

After Leesburg we headed to Chris's family's house. His sister (also a nurse) had to work Christmas this year, so Chris and I planned to come when she and her husband could come so that we could hopefully see everyone, and it ended up being quite wonderful! All his siblings made time to be around quite a bit while we were up there and the whole time was very relaxing and fun.

We had a Christmas Eve celebration the night we got there where Eleanor did Adornaments with Gaby as a bedtime story and then the girls put out cookies and milk for Santa. The next morning when Eleanor came down, she got a bit upset because not only were all the cookies on Santa's cookie plate gone, but all the cookies on the tiered cookie plate in the kitchen were gone, too! She couldn't believe Santa had come into the kitchen and eaten all of those cookies after eating all the cookies she put on the plate for him...whoops! :) Erika and Jonathan also shared their stockings with us (they had given each other various cheeses and charcuterie), which was very kind.

We played a couple games Christmas Eve night, both of which Jessie won. One involved opening a gift with potholders on your hands and the next was a fun group game where you guess who said what phrase in response to a prompt.

Christmas morning was very relaxing. Eleanor, true to form, helped everyone open their stockings and then helped everyone open their gifts, too. One of the biggest hits was that Chris got a drop spreader and then we had to hide it in another room because Eleanor and Jane only wanted to play with it as a stroller. The first thing Jane did was drop something into the basket and start pushing only to throw a fit when Eleanor tried to assume control.

There were Christmas hats, matching skirts, matching pants, and Rudolph hair galore.

There was food, wine, a trip to Burke Lake Park for a walk, a couple a nights spent around the fire pit, and Chris was able to help his brother move.

Football was watched, the girls played on the rocking horse, games were playing, and movies were watched.

RockingHorse from Katie Stratton on Vimeo.

We had a very fun family-filled time and appreciate all the lengths that were gone to in order to celebrate a little bit differently this year. Merry Christmas, everyone!

After we got back to our house, we realized we had forgotten to take a pyramid picture this year (a tradition in my family, usually taken on Christmas Eve before we go to bed), so we ended up taking a small one with just our family.