christmas

At quarter to seven I finally had to wake the kids up. I haven't been that eager to start Christmas in years! It didn't take much. All I had to do was mention that Santa had come and they were wide awake! I admit part of my rush for getting the morning started was that I wanted us to have plenty of time to enjoy the morning before getting ready for church. It was perfect. We let Aimee and Porter find their presents and rip right into them. Santa mostly brought things like shoes or clothes that the kids needed, although he did manage to also get them each the item they asked for when they sat on his lap. They didn't really mind. They just loved opening things. We also put a picture of the Jesus under the tree to try to make sure he was the focus of the day, and talked about why we have gifts. Chad is a great teacher to our kids! They could see more presents under the tree when we told them it was time to get dressed, but did their best to be obedient. We sort of had three phases of opening gifts. Once that morning for the Santa gifts, and twice via Skype with each of our parents, so they could see the kids get excited about the things they had given them. The grandparents spoiled us all! It was a fun way to spread out the fun of the day. We very much enjoyed celebrating the day by going to Church and taking the sacrament. I can't think of a better to thing to do on Christmas than to partake of the greatest gift of the all, our dear Savior, Jesus Christ. Chad even got to set by us during the meeting! With our Bishop out of town Chad had quite a bit to do before coming home, but I was grateful that her was serving at representing Christ on his birthday. We had our traditional Eggs a la Golden Rod for dinner instead of breakfast due to the time constraints. It was great to be with my little family and still see and talk to our families back home. The Spirit was in our home and although it was a busy day it was pretty near perfect. It was a Christmas I won't soon forget!