Christmas 2020

 The most wonderful time of the year!

Our Christmas started when Brandon flew in to town on Dec 17th. It is so fun to have him back! He cracks me up. There's a lot more potty humor in the house when he's around... that part doesn't usually crack me up. But it cracks HIM up. 

Hey! Blogger put my pics in the right order this time!

Yippee!

Our neighbor, Aaron, has some holiday inflatables in his yard, including one of Buddy the Elf that he moves around every day. We were telling him how hilarious that is. And we mentioned that Brandon was really looking forward to watching Elf with us when he got home. So, our neighbor kindly offered to have Buddy in our yard on the night of Brandon's arrival. I thought that was hilarious. I couldn't wait to surprise B with a giant Buddy in the tree.

Some people do Elf on the Shelf....

We had Buddy in the Tree. Ha ha!

Brandon wasn't nearly as impressed as I was hoping.

He just said, "Y'all are weird..."

We made gingerbread houses together.

Caroline went with a dark theme this year...

it may have involved a sour patch kid meeting his demise...

Yikes!

B train made a bouldering wall.

So fun.

I went with a Pop Tart house, which is

a new thing this year. I liked being able to cut it

and it doesn't shatter like sometimes happens

with graham crackers.

Whitney made a self-portrait,

which she found hilarious.

She's holding a little painting.

Andrew did an "inclusion train".

He included one of every type of candy in the train car.

So happy together!

The girls and I had fun watching Elf.

Andrew and Brandon both fell asleep. Ha!

For date night, Andrew and I drove around to see some holiday lights.

High Point University has a drive-thru event where you can see

all the giant nutcrackers and lights on campus.

They have a cool big nativity.

The conservatory looked cool, lit up with red and green.

The buildings on that campus are so regal!

It's gorgeous.

This candy cane double helix in one of the science 

buildings was cool, too.

I'm glad we went to HPU, but the line to get into campus was

LONG. I think we waited for over half an hour to get in.

And then the line just creeped along. For another half hour.

Not sure we'll add this to our list of traditions.

I DO want to add this house in Jamestown to the list, though.

It was spectacular!

There was also a long line there, so 

we didn't wait to get a spot right in front of the house.

It was so fun having both boys with us at church on Sunday.

Whitney and I did a duet of Hark, the Herald Angels on the piano.

It was a great Sabbath day.

That night we drove around Sunset Hills,

my favorite lights in town.

The pictures don't do it justice!

So fun.

And I think there were more this year than ever.

Andrew got us Christmas donuts for FHE treats. Yummy.

We went downtown one afternoon to see 

the Christmas trees that are decorated down there.

I think that's a new event.

We had a beautiful sunny day for it.

Thought of Quinn when I saw this butter ornament.

I didn't take many pics of the trees,

but there were a few really cool ones.

Caroline wanted us to make cookies on

Christmas Eve. She specifically requested

peanut butter kisses.

We were all super excited for our big

Christmas Eve feast!

Andrew's favorite part: the crab legs!

I think the artichokes are my fave.

It was SO good. We didn't even same room 

for the yummy peppermint cheesecake that I made. Boo.

Then we headed upstairs for our 

traditional jumping pics.

Perfect!

The kids also wanted to re-create this pic

from 2011.

Cuties.

Boom!

I never look as cool in the pics as I picture in my mind. Ha!

We read the Nativity story together,

but didn't actually act it out this year.

WAY too old for that. :)

One of my fave parts of Christmas is sibling gifts!

The kids are so kind and generous with each other.

Among Us stickers

A giant gaming mouse pad

We forgot to talk to Caroline about what time she could wake up in the morning before she went to bed, so I decided to tape the top of the stairs off and leave a note for her that she could wake us up at 7.

That early bird knocked on the door at seven a.m. sharp!

They might be growing out of some of our

traditions, but they still humored me with a 

top-of-stairs pic.

Christmas!

COVID Christmas!

Last year I would never have imagined giving face

masks as stocking stuffers. Wow, how the world has

changed in one year!

I had such a hard time shopping for B.

I bought him a bunch of gifts because

I wanted him to have the fun experience of

Christmas morning. But, I had not idea 

if he would actually like any of them.

So, I told him he had to act excited on Christmas morning

and then we could return anything that he didn't like.

He did a GREAT job of seeming genuinely excited

about his gifts! (I think there's only one small item

[springy finger massagers for climbers] that he might

want to return.) Not bad! I was happy he liked this shirt I 

picked out for him. He is very particular about clothes,

but I thought this matched his vibe.

Traditional Sonic card from Aunt Irene.

Piano soap.

Whitney requested some gifts from small business owners,

which I thought was sweet.

Zen garden

A kalimba!

A 3D printed Among Us crewmate

Andrew got me a really cool puzzle of Greensboro.

My brother, Mark, sent us the coolest gift!

I guess the US Mint is doing a series of dollar coins

called "American Innovation." There is a coin for

each state and Connecticut chose the "Gerber 

Variable Scale" for their innovation.

Mark thought it would be cool for us to have a coin

with our name on it. I love it!

The family got a hoverboard.

Care Bear decided we needed to take it 

for a cruise around the neighborhood.

Even though it was FREEZING.

Whitney gave it a try, too.

I talked the fam into playing Trekking the World,

one of our new board games.

They weren't impressed. Boo.

We also got Big Boggle and Azul.

Big Boggle is pretty fun. I thought I would

be better at it than I am. It's hard to make

myself find long words when I'm so used

to looking for 3-5 letter words.

Andrew and I really like Azul.

It's pretty quick and very visually pleasing.

We can occasionally talk Whit into playing with us.

My big gift from Andrew was a surprise.

He has the hardest time keeping surprises from me.

But he did a great job this year.

He got me a telescope!

I'm so excited!

There's a learning curve.

And it has been SO cold at night.

And I'm a cold-weather wimp.

But hopefully on a warmer night

we can go back out and try it some more.

I can hook my phone up to it and take pics!

This one of the moon is the only one I 

got before my fingers started to go numb

and I gave up and headed inside.

Last year we were in Utah for Christmas. I'm grateful we could spend time with so many family members before the pandemic hit. But this year it was great to be in the comfort of our home and enjoying our annual traditions. It was relaxing, lazy, fun, and delicious.