We Wish You A Merry Christmas ~

Our Christmas Season is FULL of Family and Travel! Matt and I have always traveled between our parents house's every year, because frankly there is no other way...... We started off Christmas Eve at the Bird Family House. It was very nice because all the siblings were able to be together! Chris, Erin and Rylie came all the way from Stockton! :) Nate and Melissa came from Utah (they win the prize for the furthest travelers) Kevin came in from Rhonert Park, and Matt Hailey and I came from Elk Grove. We are lucky to be able to gather at Mom and Dad Birds house every chance we get! The little Girls Rylie and Hailey loved seeing Nate and Melissa. Nate was SO sweet to read anything Hailey would bring him, and Melissa was a trooper with Rylie climbing all over her.

We have a little program, The Chris Birds had a cute Christmas Poem, The Matt Birds TRIED to sing "Once there was a Snowman" with Hailey's help, and the Nate Imel Family gave a nice little presentation about the Candy Cane. One of the traditions the Bird Family has is that they choose a Christmas Book to give to the families. This year Grandma Bird read the story, and grandpa passed out the present to go with the story. The book was called The Christmas Candle, and each family received a Christmas Candle as our present. We were asked to find a special place in our house to present it to remember the story.
(Mini- Synopsis of the story: On his way home for Christmas, Thomas needs a light for his lantern. He stops in an old candlemaker's shop and is dismissive of all of the old man's intricate and beautiful candles, buying an inexpensive one. However, as he continues his journey, this simple candle takes on some unbelievable power. By the light of the candle, he mistakes a beggar woman for his mother and gives her his cloak and he thinks a man lying in the streets with no place to go is his brother and gives everything he has to put him in an inn for the night. Though he loses all his material items, he finally arrives home with a new found sense of what family can be.)This is where we placed our Candle to remember the importance of Family and the things we have.Another Tradition is for us to get matching PJ's... this year the girls got matching PJ's because they look SO much cuter matching than the rest of our do! :)
One new thing we did this year was Karaoke. It was alot of fun!! I think Hailey and Rylie had the most fun dancing and running around! It was getting late, and Matt and I needed to head to The Andersen Family House for some more Christmas Fun!One tradition that The Andersen Family has is that around Thanksgiving time, we put all the names of the family members in a hat, and we get ONE person to buy a nice present for. It makes the gift giving easier, and then you get to know that person and the things they like. Then on Christmas Eve we all get to open that one present after we read the story of Jesus Birth. (we would act it out as my dad read the story, we usually fought over who was going to be Mary) The picture above is Hailey on Christmas Morning. Another tradition we have is that we negotiate the TIME we are going to wake up on Christmas Morning to open our presents. Preston and Sharon are the only kids left at home and had negotiated 6:15am. This is Hailey at 6:30am NOT ready for this particular tradition! :) I think we made it out there around 7:00am much to Preston's dismay....
Hailey was interested in all the things other people had gotten for Christmas..... This is her looking at Sharon's new Vera Wang Perfume.... pretty....
This is Hailey sitting on the Camping Chair Matt got and eating the Sunsweet Raisins I got from Santa Andersen......
And this is her playing with the new Dyson "THE BALL" that Matt and I got as a joint gift from my parents. Our old vacuum is dead, and my mom told us that she got another sibling a Dyson for their new house, so we asked if we might get a Dyson as well! LUCKY US! She FINALLY left our presents alone once she got the Dress Up Box Grandma Andersen has put SO much time and effort into! She LOVES dressing up, and is SUCH a lucky girl to get a box FULL of dress up clothes....
And a new tradition my mom is starting is getting all the Grandchildren Matching PJ's! This is lonely Hailey in her PJ's looking forward to seeing her other cousins from Idaho in their PJ's.

After resting for a while we headed back over to the Bird Family House for the opening of yet another round of presents! Matt got snowboard pants that ROCK~ I got 2 Willow Tree Figures that I wanted and Hailey got two little people play sets!! We are teaching her about animals, so she asked for the Noah's Ark set and LOVED getting it!

It is such a nice time to spend with family and friends! We are SO blessed to be near family this Christmas Season! Hope you all had a WONDERFUL Christmas!