After a month’s worth of festivities, we celebrated our very first Christmas in our new house! Although the girls really missed going to Utah this year, there were definitely some upsides to not traveling over the holiday (e.g. no tiring road trip or hauling gifts!) Grammy and Grandpa came to us, so everyone was happy.
We spent Christmas Eve hanging out at home, tracking Santa’s journey through Alexa, watching movies, and setting out cookies/carrots for Santa and his reindeer. The most exciting event of the night was our kitchen almost being set on fire! I had ordered catering through a restaurant for our Christmas Eve dinner and tasked Grandpa with picking it up. I was on a bike ride with Meredith and was on my way home when I smelled smoke coming from somewhere in our neighborhood. I figured someone must be having a Christmas Eve bbq, but as I got closer, I realized the smoke was definitely coming from our house!
When I raced inside, the twins were already on the porch and wasted no time placing the blame! Apparently, Grandpa had put the aluminum catering trays inside the oven to keep the food warm, but didn’t take the out of the cardboard boxes they were in to carry and they caught on fire! Grammy quickly grabbed the flaming boxes and put them outside; thankfully, neither the food nor our kitchen was damaged. It was just really smokey! It was a good lesson in fire safety for the twins and we had a good time joking about Grandpa burning down our kitchen over Christmas!
We concentrated our money on getting the outside of our house decorated for Christmas, and I decided not to buy a bunch of decorations for the tree in our new house this year since our tree was super tall and required a ton more decorations than we already had. The twins decorated with homemade ornaments; hence only four feet of our tree had ornaments!
Santa came!
The twins were excited about the rings, necklaces silly putty and paint markers from Santa. Santa spent a lot of time at Claire’s this year!
Everyone loved the stick-on earrings!
Meredith’s favorite– animals!
Meredith calls candy canes “nandies.” Pweeeeease have nandy???
Special deliveries from Santa.
As requested, Santa brought Samantha and Amelia the frilly silk nightgowns they had asked for, plus chalk for Samantha and a few extra goodies for Amelia. Santa was very please that the girls asked for such simple gifts! The twins also told Santa that Meredith wanted her own apron for baking, like the ones they have, and Santa came through, thanks to the cute American Girl baking collection at WIlliams Sonoma! He also brought everyone a dollhouse, which no one cared about except for Meredith!
We took turns with each of the girls going to Target earlier in the month where they picked out presents for each other using their own money. Meredith loved her piggy bank from Samantha and her Moana rooster stuffed animal from Amelia! It’s fun to see what they pick out for each other. Amelia usually tends to pick out something that she herself would like, while Samantha takes a little bit more time thinking of something unique to her sisters.
My surprise gift from the girls was a homemade sign for our house with their handprints! Jake and Grammy went to the shop earlier that week to put on the finishing touches:
I’m always a sucker for homemade gifts.
Meredith is still obsessed with this code-a-pillar from Uncle Mike and Ali.
To my annoyance, Meredith is constantly bringing in her scooter and plasma car from outside and riding them around the house, so we got her an inside riding toy, which she quickly lost interest in. It’s only fun if if it’s tracking in dirt to our house!
Homemade gifts are always our favorite.
Underwater camera from Uncle Mike and Ali.
Cool books and a solar photography kit from Aunt Sarah.
Grandpa bought us a fire extinguisher, presumably for next time he almost burns the house down.
Peekaboo!
Books and crafts from Grammy!
We always look forward to seeing our yearly calendar from Aunt Sarah.
Pogo sticks!
Everyone was occupied the rest of the day trying out their new gifts and helping Jake rip up the carpet upstairs and put in our new wood floors. They accomplished a good amount of flooring over Christmas break!
“Helping” Daddy roll out the underlayment.
Meredith’s room all torn up.
Christmas dinner featured prime rib, garlic mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, rolls, sweet potato pecan casserole and a delicious new pie recipe from Grammy.
The twins pranced in their new nightgowns while Daddy installed the floor. 
Favorite pics from Christmases of the past..
Samantha:
Amelia:
A few video moments from Christmas 2017!
It was a very merry Christmas!
Lots of love,
Jake gave me something I’ve wanted forever– my blog in print! The other years of the blog are currently in the works, but Jake gifted me a tome of 2015– made in Belgium and 600 pages long! As much as I love having everything clutter-free and in the Cloud, it was immensely satisfying to hold a real live book of our writings and pictures from last year! Loved it!
Grammy cuddles.
