Christmas Overload

I am going to write all about our Christmas adventures in one post because, well, I am lazy like that.

Prepare for picture overload.

When we got to Utah we started the weekend off with two family parties.

The first one being on my side of the family held at my cousin’s home to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday who was born on Christmas.

(Luke is conked out asleep on my shoulder)

The highlight of the party was when Jared dared my cousin’s little boy to swallow a live goldfish for ten dollars, which of course he obliged.

A seven year old never passes up ten dollars.

That night was the Warburton family Christmas party.

We ate yummy food, played games and opened presents.

(Playing charades)

We stopped off to visit Ruby and wish her a Merry Christmas too.

Christmas Eve morning we woke up to it snowing.

It was beautiful and we knew we needed to take advantage.

We took Luke sledding at Peteetneet school in my home town.

This is the same place we went sledding when we were kids so it was kind of nostalgic.

The cool thing was it stayed lightly snowing the whole time and the school was playing Christmas music as we sled down the hill.

It was the perfect Christmas activity.

Luke loved every minute of it and never complained that he was cold.

It was probably because he wasn’t, we had him bundled up just like Randy in a Christmas Story.

So much so that he couldn’t get up by himself when he fell over.

Jared and I quickly got tired of hiking up the hill with a toddler in tow so we took a break for a snowball fight, snow angels and a snowman.

After we thawed out we went back out in the cold to the cemeteries to visit those we miss.

Then we headed over to my Grandma’s for our annual Christmas Eve dinner.

We have been doing this as long as I can remember and I love that Luke is now apart of this tradition.

We ate soup in bread bowls and yummy desserts.

We kept with our tradition of playing Bingo with a gift exchange.

We also played a couple other games. One of which is becoming a must have every year called the candy bar game.

We ended the party with presents and then headed home.

We gave Luke a couple gifts to open before going to bed:  jammies and 2 books.

One book was The Christmas Train and the other book was from Ruby called The Christmas Angels (super cute book).

Christmas morning we woke up to it snowing again.

Definitely a Christmas miracle. I can’t remember how long it has been since I have woken up to it snowing on Christmas.

The first thing Luke did when he woke up is ask if he could open his presents. I was kind of surprised that he remembered it was thee day.

He knew exactly what to do when he walked in to see what Santa brought.

We spent the rest of the morning watching Luke tear through his gifts.

He just loved opening them no matter what was inside.

This is what he would do with the wrapping paper when he would open clothes:

Put it on his head like it was a hat.

He was definitely spoiled and asked the next morning if we could open presents again.

My favorite gifts were a Costco membership from my parents (it’s the gift that keeps on giving or spending, however you look at it) and a stuffed, cuddly puppy dog named Sweet Ruby from my sister-in-law Heather.

After all the presents were opened we went over to Jared’s brother’s home for the annual omelet breakfast.

This is something we look forward to every year.

Luke joined right in playing with everyone’s presents.

His favorite was this race track.

He started to throw a tantrum over playing with it so Jared took him outside to cool off which lead to Jared and Greg strapping him up on the porch.

It was suppose to be a “punishment” but ended up being Luke favorite thing.

He kept repelling down the porch and then wanted to be pulled back up to do it again.

It was a great Christmas especially because we spent all of our time with family and friends.

We left the day after Christmas to head home.

Some of our drive looked like this:

But we made it home safe and sound.

All of our Christmas is down and put away.

I had to take a picture of my treasure collection of Ruby ornaments as I was putting them away.

I am caught up on laundry and now I just need to restock our fridge.

It’s a good feeling.

I am still enjoying my Red poinsettia and hope it will survive for awhile.

Now we are just deciding on how we are going to ring in the new year.

Suggestions?

Any traditions I need to be doing?