{it's the most wonderful time of the year}

 i just love, love, love christmas time.  we put our tree up early (like the first or second weekend in november) and have been blasting christmas music and watching sappy christmas movies ever since.  i am always a little sad when it's finally here because i truly believe the anticipation of christmas is better than the actual christmas.  

kenna and i had a girls day at the lake.  we did some christmas baking, watched a movie, drank hot chocolate.  she loved it! 

we love pickles so we had to try these chips...yum!

neither of john's parents didn't want to get together for christmas because of covid, so we had john's brother and his family over.  the kids had a blast playing, exchanging gifts, and we also decorating christmas cookies.  we had all the kids make amazon wish lists this year and it was life changing.  they all got what they wanted and it was so easy to shop for them! quinn is actually taller than greyson but he was standing on his toes trying to make it appear that he was taller.  i love that all the kids have someone their age. 

our traditional christmas cookie picture.  greyson is anti picture these days. i was lucky to get this one! 

while we were quarantined, we went to the lake house to eat dinner and hang for a while.  we were sick of being in our house.  when it got dark we drove around and looked at christmas lights.  the kids were so disappointed and begged to go back to welfield like we did last year.  you wouldn't hear any objections from me...so i made it happen.  it was chilly but beautiful! 

we were home on christmas eve so we decided to try creating a charcuterie board. we had several different types of meats, cheeses, olives, spreads, breads, crackers, dried mango, candied bacon, and jerkey.  we all loved it and decided this will happen every christmas eve! 

the twins were so excited for santa to come.  we had to watch santa on santa tracker to see where he was and how many presents he had delivered.  i'm cherishing these times because i know they won't believe in santa much longer.   

i bought all four kids matching pajamas.  usually i just buy christmas themed and they were not happy that they were all the same.  i told them they had to wear them to open presents and i didn't care if they ever wore them again.  well, easton changed his and i didn't even notice until after we had opened all the presents.  i think my days of buying pjs for the kids is coming to an end.  

we told the kids they could open their stockings whenever they got up. they didn't have to wait for us. greyson set his alarm for 5 am and told us he was going to get us all up.  well, we didn't make it to 5.  at 4:20 i heard giggling and paper ripping in the living room.  i decided to get up and watch them, thinking we'd go back to bed after they opened their stockings, but then john also got up so we let them open all their gifts. i don't know what we were thinking because we were all ready for naps before noon! 

the twins got hoverboards (kenna already had hers)

they all had their favorite gifts-greyson loves his airpods, the twins love their hoverboards and axes (yes, john got them axes because they love to help split wood...i still don't know that it's a good idea), and kenna's favorite was a ukulele.  she was a little disappointed because she knew most, if not all, of her gifts and was even using one since we purchased it in october. she realized this was not as fun and next year doesn't want to know any of her gifts.  i also messed up because i realized the day before that i never ordered her the instax camera that i thought i had.  whoops! i was hoping she wouldn't notice, but she did.  i ended up ordering her some more art supplies that she wanted so that made up for my mistake! 

we got a dusting of snow on christmas day.  it didnt' even cover the grass completely, but we still busted out the four wheeler and sled.  we also went for a walk in the woods and spent some time soaking in the sun.  

we had our final christmas with my side the day after christmas.  i didn't take many pictures but we enjoyed way too much food and spent most of the day there.  we were all beat.  

i am not one to struggle mentally very often, but the weeks leading up to christmas were tough.  i cried at the smallest things and just felt drained and joyless.  two family christmas' and our friends christmas was canceled, we weren't going any where like we normally do over break, and john decided that he was still going to go out even though he was technically on vacation.  i didn't think i could take one more cancellation or disappointment.  it was just a sad, hard time for me.  i felt angry and frustrated by people's choices and how they affected me. selfish-perhaps.  thankfully, i feel mostly back to normal now that we've celebrated christmas.  i've been trying to reflect on the blessings of 2020, because while there was a lot that just sucked, there was good mixed in there, too.