Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas!

For Howie's first Christmas we started a 3 gift limit and we're so glad we did!  Since Baby Jesus received 3 gifts, that's what we give our children.  The bigger our family gets, the more thankful we are that we started this tradition for ourselves.  Santa brings one additional gift and fills our stockings. They generally get 1 or 2 more from family, but it's definitely not overload on Christmas morning.

We try to keep things as calm as possible and stretch out the gift opening, so we start from the youngest and work our way up in age taking turns one at a time. It helps us enjoy it a little more. On Christmas Eve we laid some ground rules for the kids for Christmas morning. 1) We are not getting out of bed before 6:30am 2)We all go downstairs together as a family.  They did really good, except Howie came in at 5:30am and asked if it was time to wake up. "NO! Go back to bed!" was our reply.  Luckily he did and returned at 6:28am, we gave in and got up 2 minutes early.

Here's Erin showing off one of her presents.

Howie had been wanting a Razor Scooter for a very long time.

This was from Santa, what was he thinking?!  Actually this will be our sanity on our 12 hour flight back to the States, and our 3 days on the road getting to Oklahoma.  I'm actually kind of "anti-video game", but the peer pressure got the best of us (as well as the other reasons).

Howard and I don't have a 3 gift limit, we usually get our stockings filled and 1 or 2 presents.  Mine was the piano, or so I thought.  Santa put some pearls in my stocking!  I was really surprised!!  They are beautiful and I've wanted pearls for a few years now.  It was a pair of earrings,  a bracelet, and a necklace set.  I also received a small box of Godiva Chocolates and some perfume that I've also wanted for a few years.  I was really spoiled this Christmas!!!  Howard got his laptop and some accessories to go with it.  Santa also put a special Military coin in his stocking and some boy stuff (small tools). 

We spent the rest of the day playing with our toys, lounging around the house, and talking to family on the phone.  Another tradition we have that we started last year is that we eat our special dinner on Christmas Eve, and Christmas day we eat finger foods most of the day.  The past 2 years we've had shrimp, egg rolls, a fruit platter, a veggie tray, cream puffs,  and cheese & crackers.  Christmas evening we ventured off base and went out to our favorite sushi restaurant for dinner. Yes, I eat sushi while I'm pregnant, but so do the Japanese women.  It's amazing what you can do on your forth pregnancy :) !  Afterwards we drove around base and looked at Christmas lights, but it was a little disappointing this year.  There wasn't much to look at.  Oh well, there's always next year in the States.