Christmas Festivities . . .

Zoo Lights:

A couple weeks before Christmas we went to the Hogle Zoo to see the zoo lights with Craig's family. We figured, why not, we have season passes. Well, come to find out, the season passes didn't work for zoo lights. What?! We still went, because we were there, and the kids were looking forward to it. The lights were really good . . . lots of animal lights, but it was really cold!

Family Christmas Parties:

Craig's mom's side (Clegg) of the family has a family Christmas party every year where they act out the nativity, and have family members in the orchestra for it. We also have a dinner and gift exchange.

Ambree was an angel, Cade was a Shepherd, and Craig was a wise man. I didn't have a part this year, so I was the photographer, and part of the choir.

I think Ambree stole the show with her "singing" with the angels. It was pretty funny! Not to mention the fact that one of the wise men's gifts to baby Jesus was a bunch of necklaces in a little chest. She decided that they were hers, and took them on and off during the whole nativity. At one point she got them all tangled with her pig tails and halo. LOL.

Christmas lights at Temple Square:

We took the kids on the "train" down to temple square. They thought the train was pretty cool, but they seemed more interested in playing in the snow than looking at the lights!

Christmas Eve:

For Christmas Eve, we have a tradition of opening two gifts . . . pajamas and a book. They got matching girl/boy versions of gingerbread pajamas and Cade got a Toy Story Christmas book and Ambree got a Dora Christmas book. They both loved their gifts!
So excited for Santa to come!

After opening presents, we had dinner and hot chocolate for dessert. We then put out cookies for Santa, talked about the true meaning of Christmas, read their new stories and went to bed. . . the kids at least . . . we were up a little later. ;)

On Christmas morning we woke up to a very white and snowy Christmas! It was snowy all day! Above is a picture of our big window, covered in snow! Below is a picture from the next evening after all the snow.

The kids waiting patiently on the stairs to see if Santa left any presents for them!

Looks like he did . . .

The kids seem pretty excited about the things that Santa left!

This was our first Christmas with just the four of us. It is nice to do a big, noisy Christmas with a lot of relatives, but it was also nice to just spend a relaxing evening and morning with our little family.