We had a lot of fun over the holidays!! It was awesome to have everyone home and a new little one joining us this year. Little kids really do bring the magic at Christmas time...their innocence and hope for the future. It's good stuff and we soaked it up.
This was my favorite picture from Christmas!!
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year. Kam annoyed the heck out of me by taking a morning shift at Nike that day. Church was only one hour. Tyler and the girls and I went together.
This year we asked everyone what two holiday activities they really wanted to do. The kids all picked their two activities and we tried to accommodate them and plan those activities to fit their schedules. Tyler and I picked activities too. One of the activities that I picked was going to the afternoon Christmas Eve service at St. John's Cathedral. We have never gone and every year I want to go. No one else seemed keen on going (more church?!) except for Tyler so while everyone was prepping for Christmas Eve, we went to the 4pm services. This was also the first year that I actually *could* go because I wasn't doing all of the cooking. Sweet freedom!
It was incredible! We loved it so much! The flowers, the real lit candles, the music, the singing, and the Christmas message. It was fantastic! I was filled with the Christmas spirit!!
Tyler and I really want to go again next Christmas Eve. After telling the kids all about it I think several of them would like to join us too. It was that cool! Then we came home to a full house ready to celebrate Christmas!
Check out this little gentleman in his BOW TIE!
So handsome like his Pops.
Karson was ready to celebrate!!
Our table was set and we were ready to go!
Menu:
My Mom's Coors Ham
Funeral Potatoes
Christmas Spinach Salad
Pecan Patties with Gravy
Strawberry Jello Pretzel Salad
Sparkling Juices
Assorted Cookies/Treats:
My Mom's Frosted Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
No-Bake Cookies
Homemade Chex Mix
Everything was delicious!
It was a fun meal with good food and great conversation.
After dinner it was jammie time. Reilly found the cutest matching jammies for her family. Some of my kids...ahem Kameron...were giving me some Christmas jammie rebellion. Why?! Just go with it for one night. Ugh. Youths. (Yes, we are really into New Girl and Schmidt is my favorite!!)
Everyone opened their ornaments for the year and the new family game: The Voting Game.
This was Karson's ornament from his mommy and daddy.
My mom's traditions continue on into the next generation.
I love it!
Then the night's festivities really began. I requested that the Nativity be reinstated since we now have the perfect Baby Jesus. My request was denied. Also still denied...singing Christmas carols around the piano and everyone performing musical numbers. Denied. Denied. Denied. They are scrooges!! Tyler and I told the kids that they all had to contribute something to the Christmas Eve/Christmas fun in some way with some kind of activity if they were just going to shoot down all of our ideas.
First up was Ailey. She did an awesome and HILARIOUS Kahoot game with pictures of everyone from the last year (and childhood) along with family trivia. She even dredged up pictures of Tyler and I from junior high. Scary! It was so much fun!! She did a game like this last year and we loved it and made her bring it back this year. She needs to do it every year!
Reilly and Hunter brought back their Saran Wrapped Ball of Prizes game again. It is always a hit! It was full of all kinds of goodies, money, gift cards, lottery tickets, and a bunch of other fun things! Everyone loved it!
Kam's look of intensity! Watch out Brynnie! He's coming for you!!
Our girls (Beverly included.)
Our boys (missing Karson).
Hunter had no qualms about wearing Christmas jammies! LOL.
Bryn was supposed to play a Christmas piece on the piano but didn't feel that she had practiced enough so we played our new family game as her contribution instead. It was fun! As my contribution Tyler and I led the family in our rousing sing-along of Barbra Streisand's Jingle Bells with everyone jingling actual jingle bells maniacally. They will all actually sing that song and usually request that we do it twice. To clarify...they will sing two Christmas songs...this one and Silent Night. That's it.
We took our traditional Christmas Eve picture. Love that this little group is growing!! Look at Karsy. He's looking at the camera and even has a little half smile on his face!! Love that kid!! He is so smart.
By this point in the night it was getting late. Karson was sleepy. We can't go as late as we used to at family gatherings. I think we will need to start events earlier next year. We didn't get to Kameron's activity and saved it for the next day.
Tyler's contribution was his yearly reading of the Christmas story from the scriptures by candlelight. We sang Silent Night and said family prayer. Then he walked the kids to their rooms by candlelight. They still request this. I love it!
Christmas Day
I love that we don't get up at the crack of dawn anymore. Hallelujah! We still rang our Christmas bells so that everyone knew that it was time to open presents.
Karson was so curious about his presents and the wrapping paper. Next year he will be tearing into those gifts!
He liked to help everyone open their presents!
He loves technology!
He was very interested in Bryn's AirPods. LOL.
There were so many sweet and thoughtful gifts. Truly heartfelt. I especially loved seeing what our kids gifted each other. They go all out. I love their generosity. Tyler is a great gift giver too. But the biggest gift for me and Tyler was having them all here together!
Then we had our Christmas brunch. I was not in charge of any of it. Merry Christmas to me!! I actually got to snuggle up in a cozy chair and read one of my new Christmas books. That was a Christmas gift for sure! Everyone was cooking and pitching in. I just got told when to come to the table. Delightful.
We had such a delicious brunch! They out did themselves!!
Menu:
Sweet Crepes: strawberries, chocolate sauce, homemade whipped cream.
Savory Crepes: eggs, sausage, bacon, with Ailey's homemade hollandaise sauce.
Croissants and other assorted treats
Sparkling Juice
Then while we ate we did Kameron's Christmas activity. It actually worked out perfect to do it while we were eating. We all loved his activity! I think we should do it every year. Earlier in the week he asked everyone to send him their top 5 favorite songs. They could be any songs. They didn't have to be from 2023...just everyone's current 5 favorites. Then he compiled them into a Spotify playlist.
During brunch he was our DJ and played snippets of all of the songs and we had to guess whose favorite song it was. It was SO entertaining!! It was also really cool to hear why someone loved a particular song. Our kids (and Tyler) are super into music. They are always full of new song suggestions for me. It was fun when a particular song was picked by multiple people. There were lots of surprises as we guessed who picked which song. A few tears were shed as we are all a sentimental bunch. This activity was perfection and the playlist is awesome. It is also the gift that keeps on giving as we continue listening to it!
After brunch we talked to Tyler's mom on the phone and my dad. We also talked to Kirk and Meki. We had a nice leisurely Christmas Day. Reilly, Hunter, and Karson left and went over to Hunter's parents and we got ready to go to our movie. I love our tradition of going to the movies on Christmas. This year we went to see the new movie Wonka. We loved it!
We also saw a bunch of our friends there!
After the movies we had to see a few more Christmas lights and do one more tradition before we ran out of time. Our first stop was the Davenport windows. My mom loved them and so do I. This year was especially cool. The windows were all Nutcracker themed and were the old vintage decorations from the now long gone Crescent department store. My mom said that when she was a little girl and got to go shopping and out to lunch at the Crescent she felt so fancy!! She said that she would get dressed up to go and she loved it!! So these windows decorated each year with the old Crescent store decorations are very special to us. Here are a few of this year's window displays:
As much as my mom loved these old decorations from her childhood and couldn't wait to see which ones the Davenport would display each year; Tyler and I have the same affinity for the mall style 1980s decorations from our childhoods. We get so excited when we see one that someone has displayed. We were trying to explain to our kids the glory of Christmas at the University Mall when we were kids. The moving Christmas displays...elves popping up and out of things. The Talking Christmas tree at ZCMI that low-key scared me as a child. The hot roasted nuts. Sitting on Santa's lap. All the school kids performing. We both have such hilarious memories of doing that. Gift wrapping stations where our parents could get everything wrapped before even leaving the mall. Being able to roam around and go Christmas shopping ourselves with our own money as kids. Going to Hickory Farms and getting samples. Good times!!
Every year Tyler and I look for these 1980s decorations like a game. This year Tyler and I were delighted to spot two 80s mall style Christmas decorations in the wild. Our family also does this with old blow molds but moveable mall Christmas decorations are even more rare and more exciting to see!!
We first spotted this elf that popped out of a stack of presents in a little city park in the tiny town of Rockford, WA. We had to get out of the car and enjoy him close up!
The second one was spotted inside the Coeur d' Alene Resort. This elf moved back and forth next to the train. These movable decorations are on our holy grail of vintage finds. We would LOVE one!! We're weird I know but we like what we like! The elf popping out of the gifts in Rockford was our favorite!!
After the Davenport windows we went to see a few more lights and walked around a bit. It was crazy not having snow this year but I wasn't complaining. Having lived in KC and Houston... I don't need snow to have it feel like Christmas.
Then it was back home for more games and snacks. It was a wonderful Christmas!!
The week between Christmas and New Year's was pretty low-key. The day after Christmas we woke up to snow. LOL. Everyone went back to work. Ailey and I both got sick yet again. Nothing that took us out like COVID thankfully. Just an annoying sore throat that progressed into laryngitis for me. I had no voice for almost a week and a half. That is the longest that I have ever not had a voice. Crazy.
Bryn had basketball practice all week and a game. I had vendor night and Ailey came with us again. We watched a bunch of movies as a family...a few were even still Christmas movies. Ha ha. We all watched Leave the World Behind. I had read the book but my family had no idea what it was about. Several reported nightmares the next morning. LOL. It is disturbing. I thought the movie was much better than the book. That's rare.
Oh I forgot...I guess it wasn't so low key. One day Tyler was heading to pick up Bryn from basketball practice. He was backed into our driveway and as he was pulling out, there was a big UPS truck semi-blocking the street. Tyler pulled out as another car came racing around the UPS truck, and they hit each other. Hearing that horrible crash right outside of our house had me running for the door! Thankfully both Tyler and the other driver were okay. It was one of our neighbors. Our suburban was a little dented but her car looked terrible. She and Tyler were both to blame. Neither one was really looking and just assumed that no one was coming. After the wreck, Tyler and our neighbor while both a little shaken up, were laughing and talking. They both grabbed brooms from their garages to clean up the debris in the street. Holy crap. Thank goodness they were both okay!!
The day before New Year's Eve Reilly got the flu. Thankfully not COVID. The timing was less than ideal because she and Karson were planning on staying with us over New Years while Hunter was going on a guys trip with his dad and brothers to Seattle. Hunter's dad was taking all the boys to a Seahawks game. Right before Hunter left, Reilly got super sick. Reilly didn't want to give it to anyone else so she hunkered down at her apartment. Tyler and I dropped off food and groceries for her. Poor kid. It's so hard to be sick and care for a very busy baby. We came in for a bit and offered our services. Thankfully Karson is a really happy baby and Reilly could still get a little rest.
New Year's Eve
Another holiday Sunday. I'm not a fan of those. We all went to church that morning. I was feeling fine but had absolutely no voice at all. My family was laughing at me trying to squeak out the hymns and told me to "just stop!" My brother called and I tried to talk to him on the phone and he was like, "Nope. I can't listen to that!" They are all so kind. Ha ha!
Ailey was asked to come speak to the YW during second hour and share her feelings about college and her testimony of the Book of Mormon. It was cute to see she and Bryn heading of to YW together. Apparently she did an amazing job. My friend Steph is in the YW presidency and was texting me about how awesome Ailey is and what a great job she did talking to the girls. That was nice to hear!
After church we began our preparations for New Year's Eve. We were bummed not to have Reilly and Karson here like we planned but we still had a lot of fun! One of the activities that everyone agreed that we must do over the holidays was Lefse Night. That made it extra sad not to have Reilly there!!
Ailey and Tyler are our lefse makers. This is technically a two day process so Tyler made the dough the day before and chilled it in the fridge overnight. Ailey was rolling out the lefse like a champ. They had multiple pans and skillets going to cook the lefse. Every one was pitching in for our feast.
Well maybe not everyone!! J/K.
We had a lovely meal! The lefse was delicious!
We played a bunch of games like Merry Dissmas. That needs to be a returning game each year. I laughed until I cried. We also played more Jackbox. We checked in on Reilly and Karson.
Then we all wrote down what we were releasing from 2023 and burned them. This always feels SO GOOD! Then the clock struck midnight. We tooted our tooters and banged pots and pans. We yelled out our front door to welcome the New Year and opened the back door to let the old year out. We watched some fireworks going off around us and had a brief Pop It war! Good times!!
Happy New Year from the Johnsons!!
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