Minnesota Christmas

We're well into January so this post will be of no interest to anyone but myself, but I wanted to take a quick minute to recap our 2013 Minnesota Christmas. Originally, we were planning to celebrate Christmas with Andi's family on December 15, but Andi's mom was feeling under the weather that day so we rescheduled for January 3, 2014. None of us wanted to wait that long, but there weren't many available dates between us until after the New Year's holiday since we spent the week of Christmas in Nebraska this year and Andi traveled for work the week following. When January 3 arrived, we had to postpone again because Andi's dad came down with a serious case of influenza and we didn't think it best to expose anyone to his sickness, especially Tory and Aden. So, we rescheduled our Christmas gathering again for Thursday, January 9. Poor Aden was the one who was sick with a cold this time, but we went ahead and held Christmas for Andi's family at our house anyway. If it wasn't then, I'm not sure when we could've all gotten together to celebrate!

Being on a week-day evening and with a sick baby that week, I kept things low-key with heavy appetizers for food, beer and wine. Andi's mom, Janie, was a big help in pulling everything together. She brought chicken wings and mozzarella sticks to munch on and I added a large selection of meats and cheeses. It pained me to pass up a holiday and not pull out all my fun dishes and charger plates, but I was feeling pretty over the holidays by this point. Sad, but true. I'd been itching to take down the remainder of my Christmas decorations all week, but left them up so it'd still feel festive. Despite the late start, we all had a great time together.

Tory has been very into "parties" lately, so I prepped her before nap time that Grandma, Grandpa, Lindsay and Kyle were coming over later for Christmas. She insisted on making decorations so we threw together a last-minute red and green paper chain to hang from the ceiling. My friend Lindsey had given the kids each a set of Christmas outfits when Aden was born, so I dressed the kids in those and they were so, so adorable.

After dinner, we quickly moved into the gifts portion of the evening since we were on limited time being a week-night and work day for everyone the following day. We let Tory open all of her presents first and she was excited about each and every one. She did take a little prodding to keep going as she wanted to play with every gift after opening it. We finally gave her our Christmas presents from "Mom and Dad" and the My First Dollhouse and suitcase were big hits with her. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen her sit and play with something as long as she has that dollhouse! The creative play she has with all the people is pretty funny to listen to.

Poor Aden just wasn't feeling like himself due to his cold, so I rocked him in my arms for most of the evening. If he could have been, I know he'd have been excited about his new PBK Anywhere Chair and all the clothes he received from everyone.

We gave Andi's mom, Janie, a new iPad Mini and she was so shocked when she opened it. She kept saying she thought it was a set of cards, so imagine her surprise when she realized it was something even better! She does so much for us, we really wanted to give her something special.

Now the holidays are officially over for us and we're moving full steam into 2014. It's hard to imagine what the kids will be like during our next Christmas holiday (Aden able to open his own gifts and Tory nearly 3 1/2 by then). Christmas is always a magical time, but it's even more so with little kids. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring.