It was our first Christmas without the Fosters and the Texas Ginns living close by to celebrate with. Thank heavens we still have Nana and the Frenchs! But I was still worried.
Well things turned out how they normally do when I worry, and I shouldn’t have worried at all. Though it was very different and we missed our people, we still had such a merry and bright Christmas! We are so blessed! We are tired because we celebrated big and for several days, but we are blessed!
Our Christmas 2019 celebrations started out on Christmas Sunday with a great gift from our awesome elf Elmer who collected some of our old toys to take back to the workshop and then it was on to a really great Christmas church service! The girls looked gorgeous of course in their new Christmas dresses featuring the buffalo plaid vest Keagan begged for. Keagan also begged for wavy hair for the first time which we achieved by her sleeping in her braids after her shower. Sacrament meeting was so full of the most beautiful music, testimonies of Christ and a powerful spirit. Then once we were home we made Christmas cookies with a giant mess and a huge side of laughter. We had an absolute blast decorating them and Riley laughed so hard she cried because her frosting was “pooping” on her cookies. We had a great Come Follow Me lesson reviewing the whole nativity story together and went for a really nice walk. We went to the Frenchs house for dinner and had such a fun and festive night with them! Miss Taryn made the best hot chocolate we’ve ever had (Riley and I take ours over ice!), we helped in Secret Santa drop offs and then we all went to go look at beautiful Christmas lights in the Woodlands. So in other words our Christmas 2019 celebrations started out with a bang!
That was just the beginning of all the fun because Christmas Adam (Adam came before Eve) was pretty fabulous too! We spent the day getting our house ready, running errands and delivering gifts before an amazing adventure of a night! I had won some tickets on Instagram for the Magical Winter Lights festival and we decided to use the rest of the birthday money Grandma Debbie gave the girls to do something fun with to take our friends Mrs Heather and Calli with us as a Christmas gift! I am SO glad we all went even not knowing what to expect and knowing it was a pretty long drive because it was such a fun night and we all had such a blast! The girls watched the best Christmas movie ever made, which is “Elf” on the way down and back. The lights, lanterns and amazing structures at the festival were so gorgeous and different from anything we had ever seen before so we just loved walking around and taking it all in! We watched an acrobat show and then I totally got caught up in the fun of the cool cotton candy creations that I see so many friends get in Asia that I spent way too much money to get both Keags and Rys their own darling bunnies made out of cotton candy! Then we finished off the night riding lots of rides including Keags and Calli riding the Sizzler 4 times and us laughing at their faces each time! Top that off with a trip to the gigantic Buc-ees and that’s what Christmas Adam dreams are made out of!
Our Christmas Eve was different then any of our previous ones and pretty non traditional, but it was really amazing! Because we have all loved serving during thanksgiving I searched for a service opportunity for Christmas Eve and then invited lots of friends to join us! We ended up with an amazing group of us, the Frenchs, the Reeves, the Hall-Browns, the Sanford’s, the Gruewell’s, the Chalks and the Boyd’s. We all went to the George R Brown Convention Center downtown to volunteer at the huge Super Feast! We worked from 12:30-4 and did a variety of things like serving food, helping clear tables and trash, distributing free toys, food baskets and clothing, and cleaning up. Keagan, Riley, Calli and I were the welcoming committee a good part of the time welcoming people and telling them where to go. We were awesome at that! Then most of us ended up helping Mrs Taryn’s food basket distribution station that had dwindled down just to onions, so many onions. All of us and especially the kids had a really great experience and once again gained a lot of perspective and gratitude. Afterwards everyone kind of split up but we joined the Frenchs and Hall-Browns as we walked over to the Hilton America and had a really great Christmas Eve dinner at Pappasitos together. After such a nice and yummy meal that the Hall-Browns graciously gifted us, we spent a little time in Discovery Green Park before coming home to track Santa, put out cookies and carrots for him and clean up because everyone knows Santa doesn’t come to a dirty house!
Christmas Day was fantastic as well! The girls decided quite a while ago that this year they were asking Santa for SNOW! To be a little more specific, because we do live in Houston, Texas where it very, very rarely snows, they asked Santa to go to Utah to see the Fosters and snow! The Fosters are really the important part there but snow is a very close second. So they have known for some time that I have been working with Santa thru email and he split the cost of plane tickets to a Utah next week! But he also dropped off stockings and surprise gifts for the girls which were what they really, really wanted and both have loved! Riley got a Mickey Mouse Club House track that she has played with non stop and Keagan got a giant pile of scrunchies that she has matched to every outfit she has worn since. But they got gifts from mommy (mostly snow clothes) and their dad (mostly money for the trip.) Plus all the ones they already opened from Sa and Grandma Debbie, a box from the Balish’s, a delivery from Mrs RoxAnne, gifts from Calli and even after Christmas gifts from Uncle Brandon and the Frenchs. These girls are so loved! My absolute favorite gifts were from Keagan who made me a killer coupon book like I requested and some awesome new mascara that she bought when she bought Riley two Mickey Mouse gifts with her own money!
After presents we followed Ginn family tradition and made a Pakka breakfast before relaxing most of the day and enjoying it greatly! For dinner we had the Frenchs over. It was a traditional menu of ham, mashed potatoes, frog eyes, etc. but untraditional that it was a pajama party! Keagan even topped off her table setting with a “life is better in pajamas” sign to celebrate it! Keagan also made a red velvet cake into a happy birthday Jesus cake. We did candles and sang happy birthday and then we did our traditional masks and sing/read thru the nativity. While Miss Taryn and I spent some time with Nana, Reagan introduced Keags to several tick tick dances and started a whole big thing at our house! Add that to the fact that several friends got phones for Christmas and all of a sudden Keagan has been on her iPad texting, face timing or doing (off) tick tock dances a ton!
Since Christmas we have had two play date full days, a full day of taking all of our Christmas stuff down and putting it all away. I had quite the evening experience for a girls night out with Taryn, Jenn and Jessie at a Greek restaurant that included belly dancers and accordions! And we had a great last Sunday of the year where the girls went to primary (the children’s ministry) for the very last time and the Frenchs came over for Sunday dinner where we played games and traded Christmas gifts.
What an awesome Christmas season we have had! We have talked a lot about it’s true meaning, watched our church’s amazing new nativity video several times, done our 25 days of Christ ornament and scripture each night and participated in Light the World to try to be more like Jesus. His birth, life and sacrifice are our greatest gifts ever given and what a blessing to know that He lives and loves us! With all of that I’m not sure what in the world I was worried about! Our Christmas 2019 was merry, merry!
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