Smith Family Christmas 2015

As I said in my last post, we spent a whole Saturday celebrating Christmas with each of our families. The Saturday before was spent with Jake's side and the Saturday after was spent with my side. It's so much fun splitting it up like this and not having the hustle and bustle of cramming everything into one day! 

Jake's mom hosts our Smith Family Christmas every year, and we always have so much fun! Last year she had Santa make a visit and hand out the kids stockings to them and she decided to that again this year. The bigger kids love this but my two are still somewhat afraid of Santa. Jackson is more shy than afraid but did finally come around long enough to hand Santa some cookies at the end. Avery was terrified and hid hear face in Jake's shoulder for a majority of Santa's visit. Poor Avery. :-(

Poor Avery, My niece Alexis ended up taking her in the kitchen to get away from Santa and she actually fell asleep in her arms. So sweet. Hopefully next year, Avery enjoys Santa a little more. 

 After Santa left, the adults got to go through their stockings and then we all packed up and headed out to the St. Charles Christmas Parade. We did this last year too and it was so much fun that we decided to try it again this year and I'm so glad we did!

We got there early so ensure we got a good parking spot, so while we waited for the parade to start, we snacked on some goodies! :-)

Avery especially loved the kettle corn.

Then the parade finally started! Yay!

Scrooge!

Bob Cratchet and Tiny Tim.

The carolers are always so fun to listen to.

 They always have different Santa's from around the world. It's such a cool parade.

And last but not least, Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus.

After the parade, we stopped in New Town and had a quick (very quick since it was very chilly outside) family picture taken. My nephew Brandon was home from school and we hadn't gotten an updated family picture since Avery's been born, so we wanted to try and get a family picture while everyone was in town and together. I think they turned out nicely.

After our quick family pictures, we headed back to my Mother-in-Law's house for lunch and presents! I changed the kids into comfier clothes for the rest of the day. Avery got the cutest jammies in her stocking. They came with a matching stuffed monkey as well so I couldn't wait to see her in them. They are so stinkin cute.

The kids really loved opening presents. Jackson started out as being "Santa". In Jake's family, it's pretty special if you get to be the person who passes out the gifts, aka "Santa". Then Avery decided she'd like to try being "Santa" and it was too cute! Each time she handed a gift to someone everyone clapped for her and she just thought this was the coolest thing ever.

After the kids opened their gifts, the adults opened there's and then it was time for the adults and teenagers to play our annual game of Survivor! It's always so much fun! It's somewhat like pass the trash, but on a much much larger and more fun scale!

So that was our very busy and very fun Smith Family Christmas Celebration!

Christmas Day - 2015

We did several fun Christmas activities leading up to Christmas that I really want to share here on the blog, however I think I'll start here with Christmas morning at our house and go from there!

Christmas this year (like the last 2 years) was spent at home in our pajamas and we LOVED it!! Jake and I always said that when we had kids, we wanted to spend Christmas day at home and thankfully we've gotten everyone in our family to jump on board with that. So we spend a whole day with each of our families on a day around Christmas and then Christmas day is spent at home with the kids, and it's wonderful.

Our "Santa" tradition is that Santa brings one unwrapped gift for each of the kids on Christmas Eve and fills their stockings with goodies as well. We wrap the rest of the gifts and those are from us. 

We also set cookies, milk, orange juice and a carrot out for Santa and his reindeer this year. This was the first year we made sure to start this tradition because I felt like Jackson was actually old enough to get it. He is the one that requested Santa have orange juice as well (not sure where he got that from) and the carrot for the reindeer. :-) Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt and Uncle's house and while we were there the kids decorated cookies, so we used those cookies for Santa. :-)

So when the kids woke up Christmas morning, the first thing they saw were their Santa gifts and they were both very excited!

 Santa brought Avery a cute little pink kitchen and he brought Jackson a Paw Patrol Look-Out!

He also filled their stockings with a few goodies. 

I decided to start a new tradition this year where Santa brought each of the kids a special ornament for the tree. It was in each of their stockings. Jackson got a Ninja Turtle ornament and Avery got a Minnie Mouse ornament. Each ornament was of something they are into right now. I may use a Sharpie and write the year on them somewhere. I thought we'd use them on our tree until the kids are old enough to have a tree of their own and they can take their collection with them. :-)

After checking out what Santa brought them, they moved on to opening the presents from us. :-) It was so much fun watching them open presents this year! Jackson was so excited to see what he got and with every present opened, Avery exclaimed "Wow!!" It was the cutest thing ever!! Thankfully we got it all on video, just as we do every year!

Avery trying to put on a pair of jammies she just opened. Ha!

Big brother helping Avery open a present. :-) He's so sweet.

Jackson opening his legos. He said this was his very favorite gift this year!

Avery giving one of her new Little People Princesses a kiss. :-)

Avery hugging her new Giant Minnie Mouse. This Minnie Mouse is taller than Avery is and she absolutely loves her. I'm pretty sure this was her favorite gift this year. At nap time that afternoon, I had to rock Avery and Giant Minnie on my lap. Ha! That was interesting.

This play-doh set was also a big hit!

After opening presents, the kids played with several of their toys while Jake and I put a few of them together. We also watched the Disney World Christmas Parade!

 

Jake made a big breakfast at lunch time and as he was making that, his Mom stopped by for a little while to see what the kids got for Christmas. 

After lunch, I put Avery down for a nice long nap and we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We also played a few of Jackson's new board games with him.

Later that afternoon, Jake's mom headed over to his older brother's house to hang out with them and Jackson and I built a little city with of his new legos! We had the best time building it and he said multiple times how much fun it was to build that city and how much he loved me for helping him! So. Stinkin. Sweet!!!

Once Avery woke up from her nap the kids played a little more with their new toys and we watched a few Christmas cartoons. 

Then Jake fixed us dinner and the kids ate in their new little desks that we got them!

It was such a fun filled day, one that went by way too fast! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Trimming the Tree and Decking the Halls

Decorating the tree this year was so much fun. The kids are both at great ages for "helping" and they were both eager to do so.

Avery was so cute. She is always willing to say "cheese" for the camera.

I managed to snap this picture of both of them in front of the tree with my phone before we got started decorating. :-)

Every year we let our tree sit in a bucket of water to get a good drink over night and then Jake brings it in the next day for me to decorate. I always get it trimmed up and put the tree skirt around it and take a picture so that I have an un-decorated picture and then a decorated picture. This was just something I did the first year and have continued ever since. This year, with having all of our stuff in storage, we had to try and dig through our storage locker to find our Christmas boxes. We found the 2 I thought we would need that had all the stockings, ornaments and lights in them so we grabbed those 2 and made our way back home to decorate. Once we got home and I started going through stuff, I realized we were missing something... the tree skirt. Jake's Great Grandma made each of her grandchildren a tree skirt several years ago, even before Jake and I got married. Jake's mom held on to it and gave it to us the first Christmas after we were married. It's really special and means a lot to us. I'm so bummed we didn't get it from storage, but we made due with this Christmas blanket I happened to have in one of the boxes.

I put the lights on and then Jackson and Avery helped me hang the ornaments on the tree. Avery is still a little bit to small to really help but she tried her best and it was really cute. Jackson is really at a great age for helping. This was really the first year he could actually help, we just had to work on getting each ornament on a different branch. Ha.

They really enjoyed helping... that is until Jackson had been unwrapping ornaments for quite a while and finally said 'I'm tired from this" and headed back to watch t.v. in our bed. Ha!

Once we finished up, Avery was ready and willing to take a picture in front of our tree. Jackson... not so much. 

And here is our 2015 cute little Douglas Fir all decorated.

And a picture of my little nativity set. I've had this since around 2003. I used it as a centerpiece on the table this year along with a cute little table runner that my sister made a couple years back.

So that wraps up our Christmas decorations this year. I wasn't quite sure how a tree and any of our decorations would fit in our condo, or if we'd even be able to get to our Christmas boxes in storage, but it all worked out and I'm pretty pleased with how it all came together. :-)

And just for fun, here are all of our Christmas Trees from 2007-2015!!