Christmas Day was on Wednesday. But the night before we had our special Christmas Eve family dinner. We had 'Panda Express' with my coconut shrimp & pot stickers, sparkling grape juice & bundabergs. After we had dinner we read the 'Nativity story' from the scriptures, Luke 2:1-20. Then we made gingerbread cookies, and the kids decorated them for Santa. We put them on Santa's plate & left them on the table. Kids went to bed early so they won't see Santa come put presents in their stockings!
Christmas morning we heard Jaxon up & talking about 7am, Jason got up & told him to go back to bed lol. Then we heard more kids up & walking talking around 7:30am. So that's when we got up & opened presents. Dad got a toaster, Mum an exercise row machine, Tyrell got a blue guitar, Mina a long board, Jaxon got a crossbow, Leila a green Ukelele, Erana ninja turtle toy & pjs! We had a nice Christmas morning with no stress, because i had made all my foods on Christmas eve day. Coconut Shrimp, LuPulu, Pretzel salad, Bayou brownies, they were all very yummy.
We had a nice Christmas dinner at Scotts, with ham, pork roast in crockpot, turkey, funeral potatoes etc. And we skyped with Wesley, or Elder Wihongi, he looked very well & happy. We had fun times with everyone's talent, especially liked Mina's & Leila's 'Vintriloquist act' they were hilarious! We opened gifts from each other, we had Scott & Heathers family & we got them gift cert to Cheese factory & the movies, along with Milo & cookies & angry birds gummies for the boys. We received presents from Shaun & Christine, gift card to Red Lobster & a necklace & the kids got gifts too, Jesus sandals, bob marley shirt & toys.
New Years Eve was at our house, we planned on having a breakfast buffet, which turned out really good, we had breakfast casseroles, bacon & egg pies, crepes, scones, cinnamon rolls, pancake corn dogs, fruit, smoothies, bacon & sausage etc... Jason was in charge of games, he also made a schedule for the night. We played, 2013 trivia which i thought was too hard, animal pairing game & Just dance 2014 on xbox. When it was time to ring in the new year, we counted down & kissed our loved ones & toasted with sparkly. We also sand 'Aud lange Syne' accompanied by Mariah Carey, and then we continued dancing until clean up time.
Added by Jason:
I was on-call the week of Christmas so I only had Christmas day off but my boss let us go home early on Christmas eve. I took the whole week of New Years off. I had some annual time I had to use or lose. I was over the 320 hour limit. It was nice to have a week off. Stayed up late and slept in a lot. Had time to play with kids, play games and stuff.
Some other December highlights:
On Thursday 12/12 the Welch's asked Candi and I take their spot at a Dinner/Bunco party at the Prigmores that they do annually with a bunch of neighbors. A lot of senior couples. We enjoyed the food and the game. I had the highest score at our table. We sat with the Morse's. Jaxon and I saw the Hobbit 2 the next day. Candi had her activity days. It was good. The 14th was the Ward Breakfast at the chapel. Breakfast casseroles and fried bread scones. It was yummy as. I took the 19th off to use 8 hrs admin leave the state gives us this time of year. I had to add on 2 hrs of annual to make the 10 hr day. I can't remember what I did that day. Probably not much.
