Christmas Day

I love living in Georgetown. It's a beautiful place to raise a family. The events in town are priceless and the proximity to Austin makes it a great small town/urban experience overlap.

But I hate not having family close by at the holidays. I know we already saw everyone, but if your mothers are in Houston and your father is in Utah, who do you spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with?

This is the year that I learned what good friends we have. Not only did Andrew's family share Christmas Eve with us, but we were able to do Christmas dinner with some of our church friends AND do a Christmas evening birthday celebration with the Fords.

Sydney LOVED doing Christmas dinner with Abigail, Emelia, and Sean. Jeremy loved having someone else to cook for and with as he, Kristi and Jeff came together with some amazing dishes. Jack loved the kid-friendly house to play in and I loved having people around to share the holiday with. Kristi and Donnie, Jeremy and I, and then the other couple, Jeff and Elizabeth all enjoyed dinner while the little kids played and Jeff and Elizabeth's college-aged son played video games (which turned into little kid entertainment the closer we came to naptime). Elizabeth (who is our Children's and Family Ministeries Director) always brings gifts for Emelia, Abigail and Sean since she has known them all their lives and been friends with their parents for a decade or more. Knowing we were coming, she brought little somethings for my kids to open which was amazingly thoughtful. What great people with whom to share the birth of our Lord!

After playing VERY hard with friends, Jack fell asleep in the car and Sydney was looking pretty tired herself. But of course, when offered a nap, she insisted she was not at all sleepy. So we put Jack down for his nap and Sydney and I watched Jack's new movie, Oceans.

Twenty minutes later...

Most. Calming. Movie. Ever.

Jeremy thought it was precious that we fell asleep like that and left us alone until Jenny called to say that the cake was ready and we could come on over for the birthday celebration.

I think the best part of the cake was that the candles were those trick candles that won't go out. Sydney was getting frustrated, but I told her that it was like Jesus's light -- it just won't go out!

We ate Jesus's birthday cake and then just played. We were at Jenny's parent's house and Jenny's sister and her husband were there, too. Jenny and her mom indulged Sydney in some very silly game where they had to rock in their respective rocking chairs to make a train move and Sydney was the conductor. Later there was a cat burglary and a freeze ray, but I don't think that had anything to do with the rocking train.

I still miss having family around at the holidays, but I have to say that having friends like these nearby AND having the family who love us and care for us from afar makes for the best of both worlds.

Merry Christmas!