Christmas Delight

We decided to stick around DC for Christmas this year, largely due to Nick’s lack of days off and the fact that we’ll be seeing our families in Feb & March.  We’ve gotten used to quiet Christmases overseas, so this wasn’t all that different.  Hopefully next year we can be with one of our families though and take advantage of our close proximity!

We began our festivities on Christmas Eve with church at 4 PM (Yay us!) followed by take-out Thai food (we felt this was an upgrade over last years’ pizza).  Christmas Eve is my family’s big night of celebrating, so we skyped with them and Nia opened a boatload of presents from my parents and sisters.

On Christmas morning we did the customary Santa present-opening.  How did Santa know she loved Frozen?!  Can I just say that this year was loads more fun than last year from a kid standpoint.  She just ‘got it’ this year and was so much more engaged in everything.  It made for a really delightful holiday.

Nia got lots of lovely things including puzzles, books and imaginary play stuff.  This stroller and baby doll were a big hit, as were all things with Frozen characters or Princesses.  She even got some play money from Auntie Beth that we can use to play store now with.  Good times.

After present-opening we repeated our Christmas tradition from 2011 and took Nia back to the Botanical Gardens on Christmas Day to see the toy train exhibit and walk around the gardens.  It’s one of the few places open on Christmas Day and it makes for a delightful outing. Here’s a little ‘then and now’ comparison for your viewing pleasure!

 We enjoyed skyping with Nick’s parents later in the day and took a Christmas Day family nap.  For some bizarre reason we woke up the morning after Christmas and were all fired up to clean house.  Nick decided to go rent a Rug Doctor to clean the carpets, so I got us started taking down the Christmas decorations.  This was very early for us to take down, but I wanted to capitalize on our (mostly Nick’s) enthusiasm while it was there.  We also managed to fill 4 more large duffels of stuff to take to Goodwill.  By the end of the day we felt lighter, cleaner and oh-so-very spent.

So that’s our Christmas.  We hope your Holiday was as filled with as much wonder and joy as ours was!  Happy New Year!