Our Christmas

We started Christmas Eve off by baking some peppernuts. Alison loves to help bake, but hates to get anything dirty, hence all the clothes off. If she gets a small speck of anything on her clothes she immediately takes it off. I loved spending time with her in the kitchen and I hope it's tradition that will always be in our family. After cleaning up, we attempted to curl Alison's hair. She thought it was a lot of fun, but the poor girl inherited her mommy's hair and after a morning in curlers her hair was still straight as a pencil.
We had lunch at the Boomer's before Ben and George had to get ready for the Christmas Eve service. After the awesome service, we headed home to read our Advent book and we let Alison open up her Christmas pj's.
I was so excited for Christmas morning I could barely sleep. Alison was up early and Ben took her out to get her stocking. We opened stockings on our bed and Alison was pretty excited about her candy and play dough.
I love how the simplist things can make life so fun. There's no where else I'd rather be than sitting next to the Christmas, by the fire, in my pjs sipping hot chocolate, with my little girl, playing with curlers (which she kept calling batteries).Pretending she's on the beach, reading Cinderella with her new umbrella
After some yummy tea pastries we spent the rest of the morning playing with Alison's new toys and we watched a Chipmunk Christmas movie.
Finger painting on her new Elmo table
I loved thinking about traditions we grew up with and which ones we wanted to carrying on with our kids. I love my family's tradition of doing a puzzle on Christmas and although Ben doesn't care for puzzles, I decided to carry it on with Alison. We started small this year and did a Barbie one together. Really it was me putting it together and teaching Alison the art of doing a "big" puzzle, but Alison loved it and maybe by next year she'll be able to participate more. Of course next year we'll have a baby brother to contend with who will probably be trying to chew on the pieces, but I'll take that as just a little more of a challenge.
We spent the afternoon at the William's house (the family that came over for Thanksgiving). We only had to make mashed potatoes and a pecan pie, which selfishly I was thankful for. It was nice to be able to relax, eat and enjoy good company. We still wanted to make a special dinner so tonight we're making a Smithfield ham, greenbean casserole, sweet potato casserole, zwiebach, and another pecan pie. Ben helped me make the zwiebach (our first joint attempt) and my mouth is savoring just waiting for them to come out of the oven. We invited some friends over to help us eat our feast and I hope they enjoy our traditions as much as we do.