Keeping Up With...Family (Christmas Recap)

We had an amazing Christmas this year!!  It lasted for a quite a while between all the prep we did, the fact that my in-laws left for Florida in mid-December and then my parents were here for 10 days.  I said in my last family post that it seems like the kids were the perfect ages this year and I stand by that.

Christmas started for us 2 weeks before the actual day when we had my in-laws over for dinner before they left for Florida.  This has become a tradition for us and it's kind of nice to have a longer celebration and not feel rushed to spend time with everyone on "actual" Christmas Eve/Day.  We had my mother and father in-law, grandmother, sister in-law, 3 nephews and 2 nieces all over for dinner, relaxing and of course presents for the kids!  Dinner was awesome, especially these new roasted sweet potatoes that I discovered.  And the boys were thrilled with their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa.

Pile of presents from Grandma & Grandpa

Happy boys!

Using one of our gifts - fingerpaints

Our second Christmas celebration was our traditional dinner at Carl's house on Christmas Eve.  This year is was my family, his family and our parents.  It was great to have them in town to celebrate.  We ate the traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner including herring, sauerkraut & mushroom soup, fish & pierogies and of course dessert.  Sarah and I also made yummy Grinch drinks for the night.  While not my favorite meal, everything was really good, especially the homemade pierogies.  The kids exchanged Christmas presents and the boys were super excited about their gifts, especially the new I Spy Disney game and the Lego Duplo Batman set.

Christmas Eve selfie - me & my Grinch drink

Cousins eating dinner

 After we finished up at Carl's we headed home, sprinkled food for the reindeer and left out some milk and cookies for the big guy. 

Then the boys went to bed and as soon as all was quiet, Adrian & I started on what could be a very long night.  We were pleased that we were done with everything by 1:00am.

The boys shocked us by sleeping in Christmas morning, no one was up until after 8:00!!  They were SO excited to see that Santa had come and couldn't wait to start opening presents.  We had a chaotic morning opening everything and the boys were thrilled with all of their gifts.  AJ was so excited when he and Daniel opened their big gifts of Disney Infinity 2.0 and Skylanders Trap Team that he yelled "Thank you Santa!  My life is complete!"  Zak was very overwhelmed all day, but is loving all the new toys now.

First gift - a new basketball hoop from Mom & Dad

Zak tearing into a gift

Big gifts - new video games

The rest of the day we spent opening toys, setting them up and playing.  Last year we started the tradition of not cooking on Christmas Day.  We just do appetizers, frozen stuff or easy to heat up stuff.  It's SO nice not to have to worry about cooking a big meal!  I really enjoy being a kid all day long!  My parents stopped by for a few hours in the afternoon for some snacks to and exchange gifts.  They gave the boys the other video game they really wanted, Lego Batman 3 and gave Adrian and I some new pots that we really needed!

It was a nice holiday spent with a ton of family.  I'm glad it stretched over almost two weeks, it was nice to breathe between celebrations!  Hope you all had a great Christmas too!!