Merry Christmas

Our Christmas celebrations officially began the morning of Christmas Eve. This morning was designated as our family time. When Hudson woke up, we sat in the living room munching on breakfast goodies and reading Christmas books. Hudson was delighted to have that cuddle time with us and truly enjoyed hearing the Christmas story. He has learned the simplest elements of that great story. I'd have to say this was my favorite Christmas moment. Hudson is still so young that he didn't know presents were coming next and feel the need to hurry on. Instead, he just enjoyed reading with us. We then went on to exchange a few presents. He took his time playing with each gift before moving on to see what else he had gotten.

Then the weather changed...at first the sleet and snow seemed picture perfect with the fire keeping us warm in our home on Christmas Eve. Maybe it would have been perfect had we not had travel plans. Church was canceled for the evening, so we drove over to Tulsa after Hudson's nap. I'll just say I was praying before we made it to the highway in Stillwater. The normal 1.5 hour trip to Gigi and Pa's took 3 hours! We were just glad we made it when it was all over. Hudson wasn't a huge fan of this snow storm. The drifts were so high around the house that he couldn't walk in them, and he fell a time or two as well. When we got back to our house, we did convince him to give it another try, and he enjoyed it then.

As for family time, we had a great visit with the Lane side of the family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. The cousins enjoyed their play time with one another. Hudson was not too interested in opening presents Christmas day as the train table for all the kids from Pa and Gigi that was left sitting out was far more interesting than any other gift he could open. Even though we couldn't make it out to church, we took time together to reflect on our reason for this celebration with a reading of the Christmas story and a nativity reenactment as well, all focused on the little ones, of course.

Rockey, Susan, and Stephen journeyed over from Mississippi the next day for another Christmas celebration with us. Hudson seemed to get the present opening this time and was delighted to see gifts fill up under our Christmas tree when they first arrived. His interested was further sparked when he realized many of his presents were from Thomas and other trains. Thanks for coming to see us!

We hope you and your family had a joyous Christmas celebration as well!

Getting the driveway cleared off!