Christmas 2011

Last year, Christmas of 2010, was our first Christmas all by ourselves. It was also our first Christmas on this side of the world. It wasn't bad, but it kind of felt just like any other day.

This year, although I wasn't as "festive in spirit," as I would prefer to be, we worked really hard to make Christmas Eve and Christmas day as festive as possible.

Christmas Eve we went out to the desert for our (now) annual Christmas Eve S'Mores with a bunch of friends. We made s'mores, sang carols, and drank wassail (another new Galloway tradition, since homemade eggnog does not taste as good and as smooth as store bought, and since we can't buy store bought here, wassail it is!)

We left around 6:30 to come home to talk with Ian's family via Skype. The whole crew was at their house and it felt like we were right there with them!

Grace went down by 8, and although we did not get to read the Christmas story like usual, she wore her cute peppermint/reindeer pajamas and we watched Elf after she went to sleep.

Christmas morning, we woke up and put Grace in front of the tree...
We usually do pajamas on Christmas Eve and stockings followed by presents on Christmas morning. This year, I bargained shopped over 6 months to find clearance gifts for Grace, and Ian and I only did stockings for each other, instead of presents also.
We listened to Christmas music, opened our stockings, and warmed up some of the 8 pans of PW's Cinnamon Rolls (another Christmas tradition!)
Then we skyped with my family! My sister and brother in law were with my parents in Tennessee and we got to watch them open their gifts we had ordered for them and they watched us open two packages they had sent.
Grace had a blow out diaper so we had to switch to Christmas outfit #2, which was in one of the packages from my sister. It says "For Santa, Not Daddy," ha!

The rest of the day was filled with Grace's naps while we ate, watched Nativity story, and played games. We opened Grace's 4 gifts from us throughout the day, but it was definitely a slow and relaxing day. Grace loved to tear the paper and chew on it. We had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green beans for our Christmas dinner.
Merry {belated} Christmas!

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Christmas 2011