Christmas
This year Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday. I LOVED it!! Last year was crazy when Christmas was on Sunday and we had 9 am church. I was so glad not to repeat that this year but Christmas Eve on Sunday is wonderful. Church was just one hour...only Sacrament Meeting. Can I get an amen?! I loved singing the carols, hearing Christmas talks, listening to the beautiful musical numbers, praying, and taking the sacrament on Christmas Eve. It made everything feel extra special and spiritual. Then we got to come home, enjoy our family, eat our fancy Christmas feast, and celebrate!!
Sunday Family Selfie Christmas Eve Edition
Church was great! It was fun to see our friends and to wish them all a Merry Christmas. Bryn (along with the Primary) sang in church again. It was beautiful. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a flurry of activities, watching Christmas movies, wrapping presents, and cooking. We had our family's favorite meal of pecan patties with mashed potatoes and gravy, brussel sprouts, homemade rolls, sparkling drinks, and two kinds of pie: chocolate and pecan. It was delicious.
Then it was time for the entertainment portion of the night. Ailey and Bryn were in charge. They had been working on the program for days. It was AWESOME!!
Oh yes! You read that right. Lip syncing numbers were added to the program this year and they were fabulous!! Unless you saw them on Reilly's Snap Chat those delightful moments will never be seen again but live on in our memories of how Christmas Lip Syncing can take a dark turn. Ha ha!! But hands down our Christmas Pageant reached new heights or should I say lows. It was hysterical but I am pretty sure we are going to hell for it. But it was funny... and no doubt blasphemous!!
Our cute MC's for the night!
The pajama part of the program got pushed up to the start as we were all ready to hang out in our Christmas jammies early on.
Ailey and Bryn begged for unicorn footies for their Christmas pajamas this year. Wish granted. They were awesome!
Ailey and Bryn did a great job planning and M.C.ing our Christmas Eve festivities!!
These two were pretty hilarious too!
Reilly played Christmas carols for us to sing along to with great gusto.
Ailey and Bryn both sang solos. Kameron played the trumpet. Bryn played the piano too. We did our Christmas stories that we read every year and all of our usual Christmas Eve traditions. It was so much fun!!
We did a lot of laughing!
Especially during the nativity where Kam SLAYED as Joseph!! Ha ha!!
We were up late and had a great time! We read from the scriptures by candlelight and walked each child to their room by candlelight. Then Tyler and I enjoyed the rest of the night relaxing and hanging out watching a Christmas movie until Santa did his thing.
This year was glorious now that our kids are older no one gets up at the crack of dawn. We've had to have the 7:30 am rule in place for years but this year we all got to sleep in until 8:30 am! Unheard of!! It was great!
We had the best Christmas morning and Santa was good to everyone. The kids had all purchased or made gifts for the family and they were all so excited to give their presents to everyone. So much so that they REALLY wanted to do it on Christmas Eve but we said no. It was great to see Santa take a back seat this year as they all talked about how they were more excited to give their gifts to others than to open their own presents. They are really some incredible human beings. Love them.
This year Reilly's Christmas list consisted of lots of kitchen items and things for her cute house and room. She was very happy with her stash.
No one is a fan of Christmas morning pictures but they humor me...sort of.
Kameron finally came up with a few things that he thought he would like for Christmas. He was very frustrating to Santa and his elves. But he ended up being very happy that he thought of some things after all!! Ha Ha!!
Ailey and Bryn were very good girls this year! :)
Anybody else have kids that have a weird love of office supplies? All four kids letters to Santa/Christmas lists included office supplies...and fruit. Clearly we are doing something right as parents by keeping expectations very low. Ha ha!! Weirdos.
Tyler and I had a very good Christmas too!!
Reilly gave everyone hammocks for Christmas. She has great plans for all of us to do a lot of hammocking this summer! Sounds good to me.
Next year's Christmas Card? LOL!
Bryn giving her her gift to Kam.
In order to be allowed to post Christmas morning pics on this blog I had to swear that I would post one of myself. Ugh.
Promise kept.
We had a lazy morning taking our time opening gifts and talking and hanging out. We had a big delicious Christmas breakfast that included this Strawberry Cheesecake Baked French Toast. So good!!
We had a very leisurely day until the afternoon when we all got dressed and ready and headed out to the lake to celebrate with extended family. We met up with my mom, Stacey and John and their kids, Kelley, Chris, and Elle. Kirk and Meki and kids were coming the next day. Jordin and Ramon and family weren't able to come this year.
Dane and Ailey
River, Bryn, and Elle
Chris and Kelley
Ailey. Dane, Bryn, Elle, and River
It was fun to see everyone and to celebrate together.
This year was super crazy...obviously... and we didn't do some of the things that we normally do. I didn't even send out Christmas cards this year. That has never happened in 22 years. I hated not doing it. Christmas cards are one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. But if we would've sent out Christmas cards you would have seen these:
We never managed to get professional family pictures taken this year... so we had to resort to taking pictures with a tripod on our deck in a 10 minute rush after our ward Christmas party. Not our best but good enough this year.
Merry Christmas from the Johnsons!!
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