Christmas Family Times

Monday Night Hall Family Christmas "Eve"--

I think we were around 45 people for dinner in Mom Hall's basement.  Food was catered by Kneaders (awesome for those of you who have never tried it.  I think it is around the west coast area).  It is nice to not have to worry about making food...especially this year when I had to do a home visit for my internship until 5 so I was heading from there to Mom Hall's.

Watching some short Christmas videos from lds.org.

Liam and Scarlett with Great-grandma Hall

Notice the white dog!
Gary sent me back to the store to buy one for his mom
as a Christmas Eve gift.  Liam LOVED it and would laugh
so hard every time the dog would dance and play music.
He is wearing his new pjs from his great grand mother Hall.
See the dragon feet---so cute!

Milo, Taya, Halle, and Alyeah (Charon's grandchildren) help tell a Christmas story!

Jena and I decided to make some cookies which was fun except I forgot to set the timer and we burned the first batch.  Ugh!

Then came the main event---Christmas Day.

Jena's new robe

Ben

Mowgli and Jasper enjoying their new bones

Ben and Jena slept in so we didn't open gifts until about 10:00.  Then Scott, Chantel, and Scarlett came over and spent some time playing with us including heading out to the snow with a new sled.

She didn't have a cap so I shared!
Go, BYU!

One of the best moments of the day was watching Ben pulling Scarlett around in our front yard in the new sled.  For a few moments he could just be in the moment and be present with her.  We all took turns as our endurance as pullers were much shorter than her desire to be pulled.

New toys are fun.

Scott and Chantel headed up for naptime and we headed to Mom Hall's to play our new game "Fruit Basket".  It is a card game which changes each hand.  It is fun.  We were introduced to it by the Ipsons.  And actually one of their friends designed the game and had it self-published.  Gary ordered it for me for Christmas which was exciting.

Because of the success of the sled, we decided to meet back at Scott and Chantel's after nap time to try out the sled on the tiny hill behind their townhouse.  Jessica, Elessia, and Liam met us there for some snow play (although they stayed indoors.)

Then we headed home for a dinner of BBQ ribs and family time.  It is times like this that I really feel the distance between us and Tosha and her family.  Oh how I wished we could twitch our nose like Bewitched  (old TV show) and transport them from there to here for an day.

It was a great day.  It is fun to start watching Christmas, snow, and other wonders of the world through the eyes of these sweet grandchildren in our family.

I hope your day was great as well.