Benny's First Christmas

If I had to sum up this year's Christmas in one word it would be this: Simplicity.  We had a beautifully, delightfully simple Christmas.  In the past we've traveled to visit family for Christmas.  And although we love to see family, we decided to stay home this year (as we have the past few years) and start developing our own little family's traditions.  And boy did we have fun.

We played in the snow, baked cookies, saw the Western Mall Christmas light show (several times), drove through Falls Park, made paper chains to decorate the doorway, ate all the cookies, listened to lots and lots of Christmas music, decorated our house and the best part .... we did it all in our own timeline.  Nothing was forced or rushed or mandatory.  If I'm honest, I do sometimes feel the social pressure to "do" Christmas a certain way.  To send out cards, to buy expensive gifts and to move a shelved elf around every day.  But we didn't.  Not that those things are bad (I love Christmas cards!!), we just decided to keep it simple.  And it was a perfect way to celebrate Bennett's first Christmas!!

Every year growing up, we had a real Christmas tree.  Some years we'd hunt it down in the woods.  Other years we'd go across the street and buy it from the tree lot.  But it was real.  Always real.

Every year since we've been married, we've had a fake tree.  I bought it in college and each year either due to lack of funds or lack of space, we kept putting up that same 6' fake tree.  I pleaded my case to buy a real tree this year, but with a crawling baby who loves to put everything in his mouth (ie. pine needles) we decided once again to put up our trusty fake tree.  With lots of help, of course.

Carter helped haul lights!

Opening their new tree ornaments from Grandma Marty and Papa Dave

Benny approves of the tree :)

this picture would be very conflicting if we actually cared about college football

I don't think any one thing could be more work than mixing, rolling, cutting, baking, frosting and then decorating cut-out cookies.  (sigh)  But it just wouldn't be Christmas without them.

"Hey!  Where's the frosting??"

One of my favorite new traditions?  Matching Christmas jammies for the boys.  I know they won't let me dress them all matchy matchy forever, so I am going to take full advantage of it while I can!

And it was our very own Christmas miracle that all three boys looked at the camera ... at the same time ... without any weird faces.  For real, that never happens. 

I love having kids at Christmas time.  Well, I love them all the time, but it's especially fun at Christmas.  As an adult, Christmas is nice.  You decorate, you exchange gifts and it's, well, it's nice.  But with kids, Christmas is magical!  And we celebrate everything!  

I wish I would have videotaped Carter opening presents.  He was literally bouncing all over the living room.  And when he opened the bookmark that Brooks bought for him, he cheered "Oh wow!!  Oh wow!!  I will put it in my very favorite book!!!"

Seriously.  It was a bookmark.  But to Carter it was the best thing ever since it was his.

Bennett's reaction to receiving clothes for Christmas.  Sorry kiddo, we'll do better next year.

paper eater

Benny sitting like such a big boy in his new chair from Grandma Gale

I wish our families lived closer so we could celebrate with them, but we've been so so so blessed to be adopted into the Gale family here.  We spent Christmas Eve with them attending church and then going out to eat.  And we spent Christmas afternoon with them as well, eating lots of food, playing games and just spending time with amazing friends we get to call family!

One Giant Christmas Post

I originally had grand intentions of posting more often, but between the busyness of Christmas and my extreme lack of energy and motivation during these last few weeks of pregnancy, it just hasn't happened.  So here it is, in one gigantic post ... The Anderson Family Christmas

At the beginning of December we drove up to Falls Park where they literally have every tree in the park strung with Christmas lights.  It's pretty amazing to see.  On this particular night, it was actually around 40 degrees.  And we figured with snow and extreme cold (-10 and colder) on the way, we had better take advantage of the opportunity.  We bundled up in all our snow gear, and were actually too warm.  That's an odd problem to have during a South Dakota winter.

The view of the park from the top of the observation tower

crossing the bridge over the falls

aren't we cute??

On a totally non-Christmas related note ... the boys and I made pizza.  That was fun.

If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Oh, and I also turned 36 weeks.

I'm actually 38 weeks now, so this is a few weeks old.  I look about the same.  Just a little bigger and a bit more tired.

Ok, back to Christmas now.

Last week Monday it was wicked cold here.  Cold as in, at 9am it was -15 degrees.  With windchill it felt like -30.  So we stayed home.  (a fantastic perk of my job)  And made Christmas cookies.

Brooks is a great help in the kitchen.  The boy can crack eggs better than I can.  We normally save our cooking projects for when Carter is napping because, well .... Carter isn't such a great help.  But I didn't want to leave him out of this.  He actually took instructions really well and didn't make too big of a mess.

We moved to the kitchen table to roll out the dough and start the cookie cutter fun.  I set the boys up and left for about 15 seconds to grab something quick and this is what I returned to.

This, apparently, is a toddler's interpretation of "You can start making shapes with the cookie cutters.  I'll be right back".  I think we salvaged maybe two cookies out of this roll-out and then we started over.

It took us several tries, but we did eventually end up with something worth baking.  Mostly.

Some of them were a little maimed, but oh well.  I figured they were going to be covered with frosting anyway so it didn't matter

Oh, and all the little gingerbread boys?  Those were for the gingerbread houses we were planning to make on Christmas.  It was Brooks' idea.  He figured if we were making little houses, that we needed little people to go in them.  Smart kid. 

On Christmas Eve we all sat down and ate decorated ate the cookies.

With the exception of one Christmas two years ago, we've always spent the holiday with one side of the family or another.  And we love it.  We love spending time with family and doing Christmas together.  But this year it was just us.  I was 37+ weeks pregnant and was NOT going to travel.  And no one was coming here.  And that was ok.  In fact, I was kind of excited to start building some Christmas traditions of our own.  One of them being new jammies on Christmas eve.

Seriously?  Is this not the more adorable thing you've ever seen?  I mean, really.  We also gave the boys "The Legend of the Candy Cane" book that we promptly read three times before bed.  

We've been trying to be more intentional about not getting caught up in gifts and cookies and all the "stuff" that comes with Christmas.  I don't think we nailed it, but I feel like at least my attitude toward it was better this year.

Christmas day we spent the morning opening gifts, eating breakfast (yes in that order) and lounging in our jammies.  Two things we've learned about Christmas morning with kids.  1. Brooks is old enough to be excited about opening presents.  As in, let's wake up at 6:15am excited.  He "snuggled" in bed with us for a while, then we sent him downstairs to get himself breakfast.  2.  Carter, at 2 years old, has zero patience for waiting to open gifts.  Zero.  So we held him back just long enough to plug in the Christmas tree lights and start a pot of coffee before we let him tear into them.  And he was so excited to pass out gifts.  The boy can't read, but was he sure was enthusiastic when shoving a present in your hand, whether it belonged to you or not. "Here Daddy!  Es is your present"

We did eventually get dressed, and then we headed over to the Gale's for lunch and an afternoon of lounging and spending time with our "bonus" family.  Seriously, they're fantastic.  We're so blessed to be "adopted" into such a great family :)

Grandma Gale was wonderful and built graham cracker gingerbread houses with the kids.

Oh, and how could I forget this?  The Christmas mustache.

And if that's not enough ... there's the many faces of the mustache.

And then accessorized ...

He didn't have ANY fun with the mustache.  Clearly.  I did try to convince him to put on my Packers hat and go for the "Aaron Rogers" look, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

One of the best parts of Christmas this year (and no, it's not the mustache) was that Chris took off work for three days.  And we just played.  It was fantastic.  He took the boys out sledding and playing in the snow, we went to see the Christmas light show at the Western Mall, Chris and Brooks spent an afternoon at the arcade (a definite highlight for Brooks) and I took Carter out on a "date" for ice cream and then to Falls Park to see the lights again.

I was nervous about how the boys would handle Daddy going back to work on Monday after five straight days of playing, but they did well.  Overall, it was a fantastic Christmas!

Now we're down to just a few weeks to go before baby comes.  It isn't slowing down around here.  And that's ok :)