MORE CHRISTMAS FUN

I've already shared our Christmas festivities from the first half of the month, as well as the Deck the Halls party Silas and Devon went to and the Nutcracker performance Naomi and I saw, but there's been more!

12/24 - Silas was working on Christmas Eve, but the rest of us spent some time making Christmas treats together in the morning. Tyler, Naomi, and I worked on Oreo Peppermint Bark. 

Meanwhile, Tim and Devon made cinnamon rolls.

Our whole family, along with Gabriel, was able to sit together in one of our church's Christmas Eve services that afternoon.

12/25 - Christmas morning was quiet, just our family gathered together to hear Tim read The Legend of the Three Trees and exchange gifts. 

Over the course of the afternoon and evening we had seven people from three families and four households, most we'd never met before or barely knew, accept our open invitation to come over. We thoroughly enjoyed having them join us for food, conversation, music, and games. 

12/26 - The kids enjoy making gingerbread houses with graham crackers each year, but we'd struggled to find a time to do it before Christmas when all four were home at the same time. So it happened the next evening and we invited Gabriel to join us. Here they are near the beginning.

 

Tim and I mostly supervised and chatted with the kids this year as they worked on their creations.

Here are the finished products.

Once everyone was done building, we loaded up and went to check out the last night of the Keizer Miracle of Christmas Light Display. It's such a fun neighborhood to drive through!

12/28 - Silas and Natie headed out to the Oregon Zoo for this year's ZooLights.

There have definitely been some frustrating moments throughout the season, primarily because we're in a season of life where it's rare for all the Ws to be available at the same time, and maybe a little bit because I'm tightly wound, but we still managed to have a lot of fun.