Blessed Mountain Life: Christmas 2010

I realized that I have yet to blog about our recent Christmas celebrations, so here I am, a couple weeks late. The weekend before Christmas, we had our own little family Christmas morning here at our house, since we would be gone on Christmas morning. I made our traditional Christmas breakfast, biscuits and gravy. The kids received one gift from Jared and I - a children's table and chairs set that we thought would be too large to take over the mountains and back - and we all opened our gifts from my side of the family (they had sent them with us when we came home from Thanksgiving). The rest of our day was just a normal Saturday.

The night before Christmas Eve, we packed into our car and drove over the mountains to stay with Jared's family. Jared's sister and her family were staying there, too, and it was lots of fun for Ellie and Parker to play with their cousin, Kya. We were also able to see Jared's other sister every day while we were there. On Christmas Eve Jared went hunting then came back and joined the rest of us at the Christmas Eve service. Then was the living nativity - Ellie and I were angels this year. Then we went back to the house for a late dinner and the opening of most of the gifts. It was a great time, and the kids were all so excited and entertaining!

Christmas morning we woke up and opened stockings, and our family opened the rest of our presents. Then we got ready for a Christmas dinner up at Jared's grandma's house, with extended family. We were able to stay one more day after Christmas (Jared hunted again that day), and then we made the drive back home the next morning. It was such a fun Christmas! It was wonderful to see family, to play in the snow, to enjoy time spent together!

Ellie and me before the living nativity