Christmas Day (Finally)

Because so much happened all at once it has taken me a little while to get around to posting actual Christmas morning. Well, here it is. By the time the big day rolled around, Logan and Griffin and their families were gone to their in-laws' homes and it was just my mom and dad, my sisters, and me and Bennett left.

Despite our few numbers we kept tradition alive by setting out milk and cookies for Santa, feeding reindeer, sleeping all in the same room (minus Bennett), and caroling to my parents from the bottom of the stairs before they would let us come up to see what Santa had left. The only change in the routine was that we waited until Bennett woke up at 7:30am to come out of our room instead of bounding out of bed at 6:00am (the maximum earliest wake-up time allowed growing up.) It was a good change, if you ask me.

Another tradition we do is getting our Christmas Eve pajamas. This year we went with red for the boys and pink for the girls, but since you are only seeing one boy and one girl it looks like we don't match at all. If Matt were here, you would see that his pajamas (which we sent him and which he wore on Christmas Eve) match Bennett's little pair almost exactly.

Aunt Courtney teaching Bennett the proper technique to feed reindeer. Bennett caught on to this quickly--it is, after all, just throwing food. Bennett is a pro at throwing food due to his extensive practice in our kitchen. What an arm.

Here is a little movie of Bennett and his grandpa setting out the milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. This year Bennett learned who Santa was, although I'm pretty sure he doesn't really get the whole concept of his purpose. It was still fun to do things with him that my mom and dad did with me.

Matt called right before we went upstairs and stayed on Skype the entire morning to watch us open presents and show us what he got from home. It was so fun to have him "there" with us, although I am sure next year will be even better :) So this is pretty much what Christmas morning looked like. It was so fun to have one more year of being a kid...even though I have my own kid now. Lucky us, we are so spoiled!

Right after we opened presents and ate our delicious Christmas breakfast, we packed up the car and drove to Utah once more for a visit with pretty much the entire Hazard side of my family. We got to attend the baby blessing of my cousin's little boy, and spent three days just talking, hanging out, and catching up.

Whenever my Hazard family gets together it ends up looking pretty much like this...every time. I love it! I love everything about the loud, unorganized, chaos that reins supreme when too many people are in too small of a space, but everybody loves each other in the end.

One of the days we were there we also made a trip to Provo and saw my grandma Hill again, along with some of my other Hill family relatives and Logan and Rachel's family. Oh! And that night I went to the organizers paradise called IKEA and fell in love with several items. Nothing excites me like cubicals!

So now I think I am pretty much caught up with this one holiday that was four blog posts long. Yay! However, since it took me forever to finish this I am now behind on New Years and other events, so I guess I still have a ways to go before I can celebrate. That's OK. I have a fantastic life and I love reliving every moment of it (and forcing you to relive it with me. Lucky you!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!