Christmas 2017 is a wrap:). And a great one, it was! Truly, I must have said to Justin how great not only the actual day was, but also the preparation leading up to it. While we certainly are not minimalists, we really see the benefit of valuing experiences over stuff and we realize how more stuff creates more stress, decisions, and nagging.  While we did not go minimal, we really did scale back significantly from years past. The girl’s big gift from Justin and me (and to each other) was a trip to Charleston, SC. In fact, I am writing this in the car on our 10-hour car trip to Charleston!

We stuck to our annual tradition and made reservations at PF Changs for dinner. We took pictures in front of the tree before church….

Individuals of the girls…

Doubling up…

We did all three but none of those pictures were worthy of posting!!  Same with the ones with Karolin!  The girls had just fallen over one another and there were a few tears!

Ones with Janaina…

Ones with Mommy…

Ones with Daddy…

A family shot…

A family bonus shot…

And finally just the ladies…

While I had the best of intentions to start pictures earlier this year so as not to be rushing through them, we still ended up rushing through the last ones. We started earlier but an eye glass change and a few dabs that may have knocked someone in the face, and a fall or two here and there, caused us to be as rushed to get the final pictures as previous years. Nonetheless, Justin still took many pictures and I was very happy with the results.

Christmas Eve service was nice. I like how the service is different each year. This year we even did a candlelight Silent Night rendition. It has been years since I have been to a service that sang Silent Night. I always loved that song when I went to Church with Justin pre-kids for Christmas. While I honestly thought it was glaring missing from prior year’s Christmas Eve program, having over 1000-lit candles, many of which were held by little kids was slightly nerve-wracking.

Dinner at PF Changs was good. Service was a little slower than normal but it was delicious as always. I was worried I hadn’t ordered enough food, but I definitely over ordered! Yet, we still managed to eat almost all it…just because it was thereL. Jana, Karolin, Avery, Emerson, Harper, Justin and I all had a good time at dinner.

Upon getting home the girls, put the final touches on their notes to Santa.They had previously written their wish list to Santa.

Speaking of Santa, he actually was already gone by the time we got to the mall for our dinner reservation (unlike last year). Fortunately, we had not planned on getting our pictures taken though this year before dinner since the girls had their picture with Santa a few weeks earlier at Stacy’s holiday open house.

When we got home, the girls took a few more pictures in front of the tree in their new Mickey Mouse Christmas Hannah Jammies.

Then it was off to bed so Santa could make his way down the chimney.

Emerson was the first to wake yesterday and that was close to 8:00. She patiently waited for Avery and Harper to wake up a few minutes later. Karolin and Ludmila were also downstairs in the kitchen. (Jana left about 5:00 a.m. to go on vacation for the week).   It was really neat to see the girls go give hugs to Karolin and Ludmila before they even checked out what Santa brought.

Santa was really good to the girls…bringing them almost everything that was on their lists!!  Here are Avery, Emerson, and Harper’s lists respectively.

While they loved everything, Harper’s favorite was probably the toot gun (Despicable Me fart gun): Emerson probably her Barbie car and phone; and Avery’s was probably her mermaid shimmer and shine, mermaid Barbie and hatchimals. Emerson especially is hard to please so hearing her constant shrieks, laugh, and excitement was amazingly beautiful.

After Santa’s gifts that he left in the living room for the girls, we went to see what Santa put in our stockings!

Then it was breakfast time! I did most the preparation of breakfast the evening before so that I could enjoy the morning as much as possible while still eating breakfast at a relatively decent time. Breakfast smelled delicious and was equally amazing! Homemade blueberry scones, thick Applewood smoked bacon, fried eggs with chives and avocado, and a beautiful fruit platter.

After breakfast, we opened up the rest of the gifts.Again we went minimal, but I promise now one felt deprived in the least. Our family gift to the girls was a trip to Charleston, SC. We gave them a coupon which included some of the things we would be doing. Imagine their surprise, when their totally anything but spontaneous parents told them we were leaving the next day! Ha!

And we took some more pictures of the girls – our younger girls and our older girls:)

The next few hours of the afternoon were low key. Justin and I went for a 40-minute walk while the girls played and cuddled with Karolin and Mila. When we got back, Justin turned the movie Elf on for the girls so that Justin and I had time to pack for our trip. My mom came over in the late afternoon and brought more presents….mostly gift cards which is great because it involves the girls in the decision making process and helps them to understand the value of a dollar. My dad was sick so we Facetimed him while we opened the presents from Russell and Mary. Dinner was a regular dinner….which was still amazing but nice because the focus was on preparing for the trip today and not preparing dinner all day long. Even scaling it down, I bought too much…so I decided the russet potatoes and sweet potatoes weren’t necessary since Mila and my parents weren’t eating with us. I think I overcooked the pork slightly but it was still delicious and looked beautiful! As we ate dinner, Avery asked if we could bow our heads and sing Happy Birthday Jesus, so we did:).

It really was just a great day. Justin and I feel so blessed. He gave me a beautiful card and the words he wrote symbolize our commitment to each other and reaching our common life goals. We were blessed to have our two former au pairs chose to come celebrate Christmas with our family. Our girls were full of joy and excitement with the gifts Santa brought them. Seeing the twinkle in their eyes as they prepared for Nevis’s arrival every morning the last few weeks and Santa and his reindeers arrival Christmas Eve is purely magical.