Christmas Festivities

Christmas Dinner

Grandma Bobbie was in charge of setting the table.

Notice there are place cards.  Amara was in charge of those, and she got so creative with them.  The following photos are close ups of each card. 

Our dinner was an around-the-world theme. 
On the menu:
Asian Sesame Beans
Greek Salad
Crab Cakes
Lentils
Krab Potato Salad (a holiday favorite from my childhood)
Brown Bread

Christmas Eve Pajamas

It's always been a tradition since I was a kid that we would open up a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve.  This tradition has been fun to continue with my family as well.  Grandma Debby got these cute jammies for the girls this year. 

So fun!  P.S. Notice that our Christmas tree is really only half our tree, set up on a table.  This was because of our new puppy.  We put most of the small presents that we thought he'd tear open on the table.  He did get into a little trouble on a few occasions, but no surprises were spoiled. 

Amara loved her unicorn hood and Lily loved her light-up Christmas earrings.

Christmas Day

Santa came!  Are those hoverboards I see? Yessirreeeeee!

Someone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed spotted something Santa brought that she wanted!

Grandma revealing the treasures in her stocking.

Pippin got a few gifts of his own.

Steve got a "naughty or nice" candy cane game: some were gross and some were good, but they looked identical.

This one is so BIG!  WHAT COULD IT BE???

Are you excited, Lily?

It's a pooper scooper! Yay!

Lily donning her new sweater.

Christensen Christmas Party

Grandpa Art and Grandma Margaret standing behind their beautiful Christmas centerpiece.

 We always enjoy getting together for a Christmas party, especially the traditional Christensen party.  

Uncle Robert and Aunt Jane Force came to the party this year!  Here they are opening their white elephant gift.  We love the white elephant gift exchange.  It's always fun to see what everyone ends up with.

Something Random I thought was funny from our Christmas vacation...

Tommy getting red slime out to play with, standing on the table and plopping it from as high a height as he could.

 

Random Highlights from December

Family Newsletter/ Christmas Card

We decided this year to give our neighbor 12 days of Christ's names.  Each day we'd attach one of the names of Christ to a little treat, and deliver it to his house. Under different circumstances, we'd make it a secret drop-off-and-run type of thing, but we knew that our neighbor has security cameras and it would be pointless. Plus it's good to say hi face-to-face now and then.

Mandy shared a good sugar cookie recipe online with us, which was awesome because we like to bake around Christmas time!  Too bad I don't have a picture of the cookies.

My mom invited me to be her date to her work's Christmas party.  They served us a delicious steak dinner grilled up by the owner of the hotel, and we played some silly games.

Steve needed an excuse to use his new camera lens, so both Lily and I got some photos taken.

Here's another random yet important-to-document picture taken at April's house when we visited her for Christmas break and she made us her amazing, wonderful, super delicious baked salmon. 

Earlier in the month we got to see some of my dad's gingerbread house come together.  Amara even helped design the horse stencil for the carousel.  Here's the finished product, based on Toy Story 3.  The carousel even spun around because it was on an electric turntable.  

These last few photos are of me with our puppy, Pippin.  He's so adorable and he loves me lots.