Everett's First Christmas

Christmas always comes and goes so quickly. I loved this Christmas season more than most. I had such a fun time picking out gifts, probably because I was home all day and it gave me something to do.  And I loved enjoying the holiday spirit with Everett! Is it too soon to start thinking about next Christmas? Here's a (late) recap of our first Christmas with our sweet baby boy!

This was our 4th Christmas since we've been married, but we hadn't fully decided on what traditions we wanted to start for our family. We both have lots of traditions around Christmas-time we grew up with, so it's been kind of tricky deciding which ones will work for our new family. We still haven't fully decided what we're going to do for Christmas traditions, but here are the ones that we already had, started this year, or plan to do in the future:

-sugar cookies

At some point in the Christmas season, we make sugar cookies! I don't really love making them or eating them, but they are so fun to decorate!

Spencer was in charge of making the cookies.

Everett was in charge of being adorable.

And I was in charge of decorating them. Now to find more holidays to decorate cookies for before Christmas. I had way too much fun and wanted to make another batch as soon as I frosted the last one. Because you definitely need 4 dozen Christmas sugar cookies the day before Christmas...

-Christmas pajamas (Christmas Eve gift)

I feel like this is a pretty common tradition, but I had no idea until recently. This was something I grew up doing, and I loved it! We won't get matching pjs or even Christmas pjs, but we get a new pair of pajamas that we can wear all year long! 

My family had the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve, and we are still trying to decide if we want the pjs to be that present, or if there would be an additional gift. Conversely, we could start getting Christmas pjs and opening them on the first of December, then have the tradition of opening a random gift on Christmas Eve. That one's to be decided, apparently.

-Christmas Eve dinner

Spencer's family has a specific meal every Christmas Eve (usually clam chowder, but this year it was changed to street tacos--a much needed change for this non-fish-eater). I love this idea because it gives the kids something to look forward to all year. I'm not sure what meal it will be, but it will probably be something a little fancier that I wouldn't normally have time to put together. I'll keep you posted what we decide😄

-Christmas lights

My family would always make a trip around the town to see Christmas lights, usually on Christmas Eve. I heard of an improvement of this tradition by allowing the kids to choose a drive-thru restaurant to get dinner at before starting the Christmas light tour. Each kid can choose their own restaurant, and then you just stay in the car and have dinner while looking at lights! I love that each kid gets to choose where their meal comes from! I know how hard it is to agree on a dinner location and this gives the kids a chance to each have a say in where they eat! No arguments on this trip!

-Christmas morning crepes

I love the idea of a special Christmas morning breakfast, but I don't really love breakfast foods. Spencer made crepes when Everett was first born, and we've loved them ever since! It's fun and different, and again, something to look forward to!

-Hidden gifts

Spencer grew up with the Christmas tree and living room being blocked off to prevent little kids from peeking at their presents. Then the kids line up from youngest to oldest to enter the room and see their presents! It's adds an extra level of excitement that I really enjoy!

Christmas Eve was mostly a slow day at home, but we went up to Spencer's parents' house in Bountiful for the evening. We had some awesome street tacos, then had a small program. There were songs and laughs and an accordion, but I think the highlight of the program was the game. Spencer's mom called it something like the "Big Awesome Crazy Ball of Fun." It was much more clever, but it definitely included one two many adjectives. But whatever the name, it turned out to be a big awesome crazy ball of fun. It was a whole bunch of small prizes wrapped up in plastic wrap. You had until the person in front of you rolled a pair of sixes to unwrap as much of the ball as you could and whatever prizes fell out you got to keep. It was pretty crazy!

Since dinner began at 6, Everett missed most of the evening, but we were so proud of him for sleeping in his pack and play through all our craziness! We woke him when it was time to leave, and I got a whole 30 seconds of snuggles from our usually wiggly baby! It's always so hard to wake him up to take him home, but he was a trooper and still slept great that night!

When we got home, we put Everett to bed and continued on with our traditions (new and old). The first is that we opened up a new pair of pajamas. We both are so excited about our jogger pjs--Spencer because they look more normal than his baggy plaid pants and beat up t-shirts, and me because they are the perfect tightness for pajamas! I hate when my pants roll up past my knees when I crawl into bed.

Then we crawled into bed and stayed up a little too late talking about our excitement for the next day.

Spencer woke up early to prepare breakfast. I woke up early to feed Everett. Looks like we're already early-Christmas-morning people. Well, not really. I went back to sleep after feeding Everett at 6am, while Spencer finished up breakfast preparations. By the time I (and Everett) woke up next, Spencer was done making breakfast, and we didn't have much time before our 9am church. So we enjoyed our crepes and monkey bread, and we each opened one gift before rushing to get ready for church.

Church was wonderful. I love Christmas programs because I always feel the spirit so strongly through music. This year's program was no different.

Everett was hungry as soon as we came home, so I told Spencer which gift he should bring up to the nursery to open as I fed Everett. He opened a BB8 droid and was so happy to play with it as I finished feeding Everett. It was fun to see him so surprised by the gift and have so much fun with it. I had to break him away from it to finish opening the rest of our presents.

Everett was an angel. We set him up in his high chair to watch the action, and so we could have our hands to open things. He helped open a couple of his presents (read *pulled at the wrapping paper*), but then he was so happy to just sit and play with the wrapping paper and his new toys.

Spencer was surprised that Everett was so interested in the wrapping paper.

After we finished opening presents, we quickly finished getting ready and headed up to Bountiful. We received quite a bit of snow overnight, and it was still snowing, so I was nervous to be out on the roads. I knew that the roads would be plowed, but I didn't know how well or how frequently the plows would come through since it was Christmas day. And it turns out (for once), my worries were not in vain. The roads were great, until we got onto the interstate. Shouldn't that be a priority? to clear the 70mph freeway? You'd think, but no😞 . For about half of our drive, it was okay, just a little slush on the road. But once we got to North Salt Lake, it looked like the roads hadn't been plowed at all. It was not a fun ride, and I much would've rather stayed home. But we had lots of family things going on in Bountiful, so we didn't want to miss them. And Spencer's a pro in the snow. But I'm also a pro worrier. It doesn't help that his parents live up on the bench in Bountiful, which means extra snow (I think we got 4-5 in. that day and his parents got 18 in. 😳)

Anyway, we got to Spencer's parents' safely where were exchanged gifts and hung out until it was time to go to his grandparents' house. They had a little dinner and program, but it was mostly just a lot of talking. And for the first time ever Everett took a nap for longer than 30 minutes in his carseat. Since this is so uncommon, we spent the extended part of his nap checking to make sure he was still asleep every 5 minutes.

By 5pm we were both peopled-out and ready to go home. For me, it was more that I wanted to get home before it was dark because I was still worried about the roads. Again for good reason. On the drive home, we saw someone fishtail for what seemed like 30 seconds. Surely it was less than that, but it was an eery sight to see.

Overall, we had a great Christmas. I could've done without the snow, or I could've at least done without driving in it, but it was great to experience the day with Everett. Every holiday is so exciting because it's his first, and it was fun to actually have an excuse to decide on and start some traditions.

This family of mine is the best gift!