A Holly Jolly Christmas

Readers, we had the most lovely Christmas. I mean, really and truly. For the first time ever, we were home on Christmas morning and then stayed home (usually after the Santa craziness we pack up and head to Vermont or New York, depending on the year). But in 2019, our family came to us and we celebrated with Grandma, Grandpa and GG. The gifts were perfect, the boys were happy, the house looked beautiful and we all felt the magic.

There were lots of Decembery things we did (filed under "holiday cheer") but for the first time, the boys never went and saw Santa. They didn't really ask and it didn't seem super important somehow :( We also picked our tree in about 3 minutes: it was the first one we saw, it looked good, done. That's usually a process (and I have, in the past, devoted whole posts to it, like here and here). If you've followed this blog since the beginning, by now you know what Christmas cookie making looks like and that we read Christmas books all month long. I would hold off from posting those, except the boys still watch so intently when we bake:

And now, Ashton is the one that reads the stories :)

Besides that, we went to church on Christmas Eve, had some wonderful meals and generally enjoyed ourselves immensely. Some of my favorite pics:

Reading the Polar Express

Making cinnamon rolls for the morning:

While the children were nestled all snug in their beds...

Santa came and of course his gifts had their own special paper, but there were SO MANY PRESENTS that you could not even tell!

And the main event! I didn't include most of the blurry present-opening pictures. You're welcome.

GG received voluminous hair:

Grandpa got Alabama tickets:

And Alex got his desk :) More below on that.

 Nok hockey:

Time to play

and cook some more:

And we just hung out! It was totally perfect. The boys got a lot of sports stuff and while they did get a Lego set each and some new games, there were really no true "toys". Their lists were pretty difficult this year. Alex wanted, specifically, "a desk with a trash can and lots of white paper." He started asking for that in the beginning of December and never wavered. He even practiced having one with a box.

So I found a desk on Craigslist like I do and had it refinished for him just in time for Christmas. If you want to see the totally adorable video of him opening it, click here. It's now up in his room and he stays very busy while sitting at it. And of course now Ashton wants one.

Anyway we had such an amazing holiday and felt incredibly fortunate for all that we have.

On to the three worst, most awful months of the year, the completely useless January February and March. Such fun posts ahead!

Catching up on November!

Well let's see, what did we do this month! First, Ashton has been playing a lot of hockey and in my next post I will tell a super cool story about that. But we love to go to the Bentley games now (say hey for $7.50 staff tickets!) and it's been consuming our schedule for the most part. In fact I'm at the rink right now writing this post while Ashton has practice haha. Friday night fantastic.

Anyway the first weekend of the month I traveled to Austin for my cousin Jason's wedding. It was beautiful and we had the best time (made even better by the fact that I went solo!). And it was great to see all of my west coast family including Papa and GG. These are some of my favorite pictures:

That was an amazing weekend, for sure :) Back to reality though, I came home and promptly turned 39. GG sent me flowers: 

And as mentioned in the first paragraph, I spend a lot of time near ice now (= <32 DEGREES) so Jason got me a Canada Goose jacket :D 

Happyyyy Nessssssss.

And then of course, the major part of November which was Thanksgiving. What we have here is a case of "sometimes things just don't work out as planned." :( It was supposed to be a Vermont Thanksgiving for us and at the last minute, I got sick and we had to call everything off. I have to admit, it was pretty bleak, the idea of being home just the four of us when we are used to either hosting or traveling. But, as luck would have it, I was feeling better by turkey day and we still pulled it off! We had our whiskey sours, cooked a turkey and made mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce (thanks Brae Burn), green bean casserole, stuffing and beets. The boys even helped! We did not let a quiet day slow us down and it ended up being some great family time for us. Jason took the boys to the annual Natick-Framingham high school football game in the morning, we went for a nice long walk, played some football, games, etc. At the end of the day, we made the best of it and actually had no complaints :) 

Beets are hard work:

So are turkeys!

Some outside time:

HAHA that's such a blurry picture. It's hard to shoot a family photo on a timer with a phone that's propped in the storm drain from the street.

Getting ready to eat. Honestly, this is pretty normal in our house ("But Mommy, we had to take off our clothes, we were so hot.")

The legs were a big thrill, it was like "the thing". Who knows. Anyway, November is done and gone and just an appetizer for December anyway...let Christmas begin!