Our first Christmas as a family of 3 was wonderful. Jared had Christmas Day off but had to work the days before and after, so we stayed home for a cozy Christmas in Bar Nunn.
We started some of our own traditions, which was very fun. We changed into our Christmas pjs from grandma and read Luke 2 and Twas the Night Before Christmas. Jack is a fireball and it's impossible to relax when he's awake, so we put him down for bed at 7:00 before enjoying our Christmas Eve dinner of pizza, hot wings, pineapple, and our favorite kale salad. I was disappointed not to be able to find Black Cherry soda anywhere in Casper, as Black Cherry with eggnog is my family's Christmas Eve beverage tradition. I knew we'd be preparing a turkey feast on Christmas Day, so I'm glad we kept our Christmas Eve dinner simple. Who doesn't love a good pizza?
We had every intention of watching a Christmas movie before going to sleep, but apparently we have already become worn-out parents because we went to sleep early instead. It's ok, we watched
It's a Wonderful Life the night before.
^^A woven ornament I made for an ornament exchange party of a friend in our ward.
We drove around our neighborhood looking for Christmas lights. We didn't find many, but we did find this enormous homemade leg lamp. (Yes Jack is on Jared's lap. Literally we only went up and down the 5 streets closest to us and never saw another car the entire time. No regrets. Bar Nunn is the quietest town in America.)
Jared was so excited to get everything all set up for Jack's first Christmas! It was very cute. On Christmas morning, Jack loved climbing all over the piles of presents and gingerly pulling the wrapping paper apart.
^^Experiencing the joy of his first chocolate+marshmallow Santa.
Jack got spoiled by both sets of grandparents. His bigger gifts included a walker/toddler bike and this hiking backpack. We took it for a spin on Casper mountain but only lasted 5 minutes in the wind. Me and Jared got Jack a toy, a book, and some book ledges to make a library wall in his bedroom. He loves it!
Jack's favorite part of the Christmas season was the sparkly lights on the tree and our bed.
MY favorite part of the Christmas season was putting Jack in adorable little Christmasy outfits from his Grandma Lambert.
Jared and I had a misunderstanding leading up to Christmas. Our plan was to just get new phones for Christmas (his was dying and I lost mine), and then we'd just fill each other's stockings. Well, we got our phones at the beginning of the month and by the time Christmas came along, Jared completely forgot that the phones were supposed to be most of our Christmas. So when I sent him a list with a bunch of ideas for stocking stuffers for me, he got literally EVERYTHING on the list and more. Meanwhile, I just got him a couple dinky stocking stuffers and a book. Whoops! We've always been really good at communicating so this was a weird misunderstanding. Jared's insane residency schedule means his brain has a hard time holding onto any non-work-related information.
But don't let the picture below fool you, he wasn't bitter at all! Just not good at smiling for pics haha. I felt really bad, but both of our parents pulled through for him and he still got a great haul. Next year I want to simplify Christmas and have me and Jared give each other a vacation instead of gifts. I'll just have to be crystal clear if/when we decide that, though. We haven't been on a vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon 6 years ago. We went to Savannah for a night when we lived in Georgia, but we took the dog with us and stayed in a Motel 6 so it doesn't count.
We enjoyed opening our presents, devouring our breakfast of Christmas rolls and cold cereal, chatting with my missionary brother Tim, and successfully roasting our very first Christmas Turkey. I was really impressed with how delicious it turned out. At the last minute we had our neighbor friends (the Higginses) from across the street over for Christmas dinner. They had just gotten back from a long drive and didn't have a Christmas dinner ready. The next day those neighbors found out that they were 6 months pregnant and had no idea! They thought they were having fertility issues and they went to see a doctor about it, and the doctor was like, "Nope you're super pregnant." So crazy! Anyway, our first Christmas in our very own home with our very own baby was every bit as magical as we hoped it would be.
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