Christmas

Christmas was good this year. Different, but good.

We spent Christmas eve with my family and Grandparents in Bountiful. Paul's parents and sister also came to town and it was good to have everyone together. We had dinner, talked about Christmas memories, and my Grandpa read the story of Christ's birth from the bible. Garrett leading us all in 'Joy To The World.'

On my mom's side it's always been a tradition to act out the nativity during the reading. Our family is so big that there always seemed to be a baby boy to play the part of Jesus, and plenty of others who wanted to be Mary, Joseph, the angel, etc. The past few years the tradition has faded, mostly because the family just got too big, and now a lot of the aunts and uncles do their own thing each year. This year my mom wanted to do it again. It was simple. Just Paul, Garrett and I while my Grandpa read. I thought a lot more about Mary as I looked at my own son while listening to my Grandpa read. Paul and I were kinda laughing as we got dressed and ready for this, but it ended up being a sweet little time for our family. I love being together with family and celebrating the birth of Christ. Hanging out in the manger.
Super Baby!!
Garrett got Air Jordans from Uncle Dave, among many other things from everyone else.
He's so spoiled.

Christmas morning we opened gifts together. We had to wake little G to come out and join us. He'd slept for 9 hours, and I figured that was enough. He woke up with a smile and he sat in his bouncer smiling and watching as we opened gifts and showed him what he got.Paul's family and two of my brothers came over for breakfast, and then we all headed to my Auntie and Uncle Jon's for lunch. Then that night we met up with our usual group of friends for dinner at Denny's and a movie. Paul and I started a new tradition last year, and we did it again this year. We've decided that a late night "second dinner" at Denny's will happen every Christmas for us, and we'll surprise our server with a nice tip. If you're working on Christmas you deserve it! Last year Paul sold a sound system to the funeral home he works for and we gave all that money to our server. This year I got an unexpected cash bonus from my old boss and we gave that to our server this year. We don't plan on receiving unexpected money every year, but we do plan on carrying on this tradition. We hope we'll be in a financial situation to do this, and we hope we can be more generous as the years go on.

It was a good day. Different this year, because the thought of moving out of this cute festive house in 3 days has been on my mind, but good. Having Garrett with us changed it too. In a very fun way. Even though he had no idea what was going on, he did a good job at humoring me.
A few days before Christmas we went and saw Santa at the Sugar Shack in Sugar House. I was secretly hoping Garrett would cry because babies crying with Santa is so cute, but he loved it. Maybe next year!Garrett got his very own chair from Grandpa and Grandma Greenhalgh. So cute!

It was a nice day with family.