Christmas with Brittany and Thom

We are SOOO excited to have Thom and Brittany and their kids over for Christmas! We love being with family. Some people were worried for me, hosting company for a holiday a week or so after having a baby. But Thom and Brittany have been here enough for me to not feel pressured to 'show them a good time' and their personalities are so conducive to this visit. Thom is playful with the kids, enjoys cooking and has zero expectations of needing to leave the house for entertainment. Brittany is so helpful and super aware of not being a burden and cleans the house and plays with the kids too. They were wonderful to have stay! 

 We had the traditional clam chowder and challah bread for Christmas Eve and we acted out the nativity and sang Christmas carols. There was a sweet spirit in the room as we all sang about Christ's birth in the glow of twinkly lights.  Also, having a new baby in the house really brings home all the songs and carols of a newborn babe, and of hope and peace and love.

We opened the cousin gifts with the Betteridge cousins over a video chat and then took some matching Christmas Pj pictures: the pyramid, shortest to tallest and the traditional new baby everybody-sit-on-Chris'-lap picture.

I tried to get some pictures of Max in his outfit but he was hungry and not wanting to model.

Christmas morning we decided to congregate at 7:00. We lined kids up on the stairs and then started opening presents.

We enjoyed opening presents all morning and ate some breakfast casserole half-way through at some point. We lounged in our jammies and played with presents the rest of the day.  We had a delicious Christmas dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls etc.  We got some fun games for Christmas and played tenzie and code names in the evenings. Thom prefers to not watch movies/TV when we're all together so we end up playing games and talking. It is so nice to have family over for holidays.