Christmas at the Rowlands, with the Rowlands!

This year we were honored to be hosting Cody’s parents for Christmas.  They have not spent Christmas away from their own home since their kids were little—if ever.  We felt pretty privileged that they would come spend it with us!

Christmas Eve we spent ALL day cooking in our small kitchen space.  It was so great to have Paul and Christy’s help as I was called away for baby duty several times throughout the day.  I have adopted a lot of their family recipes into our traditions as well, so they knew better how to prepare the meal than I did!  Although it may have been a little more difficult as they had a little taste of what it is like to cook in such a small space.  I think it gave them a new sense of gratitude for their large, beautiful kitchen at home! 

At one point, Christy and I snapped this treasure.  It made us smile to see the two men passed out on our tiny couch while Jade was still very into her show. 

The cute babe did pretty good hanging out all day (his shirt says “All American;” he for sure is, but it gives it a whole new meaning when he’s never even been there!):

Christmas Eve dinner:  just pull over the office chair, and there is plenty of room for everybody!  :)  The food was amazing!  Oh, how I love the traditional Rowland Family Recipes!  Totally worth a full day of cooking though it doesn’t take long to figure out why we only do this a few times a year!

My cute boys enjoying the meal.

Ridge was born in November, and I have felt behind ever since (this outdated blog post is case in point).  Time flew by so fast as I tried to figure out life with a new baby that I had lots of last minute things to get done for Christmas still.  One of them being the Christmas Eve lesson and presentation.  I wasn’t able to do all that I wanted to, but between Cody’s nice lesson, my ad-hoc one, and using Jade’s dress-ups for our Nativity rendition, it turned out fine.  I really want our kids to understand that Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth and all the other nice things we do stem from Him.  If Jade didn’t get that this year, hopefully the Nativity activity made for a good memory at least.  Jade chose who got to play each part: Ridge as Baby Jesus (though she said she wanted me to play that part at first), Grandpa as Joseph, Jade as Mary, Grandma as an angel, Cody as a shepherd, and me as a wiseman.  

 

   

Then time for bed and Christmas Eve jam jams!

Santa even visits Hong Kong!

Before Jade went to bed, I explained to her we wouldn’t be able to open all the presents before church.  I told her maybe just one, then we would do the rest after church.  When I heard her awake the next morning, I came out to find that she had already opened a present.  I asked why and she said it was for her, from Grandma.  I looked around… no sign of Grandma yet.  “Did she tell you to open it?”  Jadyn explained, “I just found the one with my name on it!”  I explained to her she needed to wait until everyone was awake to open presents together.  When she heard Grandma and Grandpa wake, she ran out, grabbed the newly unwrapped playdough and the wrapping and hid it in her room to get rid of the evidence!  Funny girl. 

We let her open her stocking and a couple presents before we headed off to church for Ridge’s blessing. She was actually incredibly patient--even more so than Grandma, I think. ;)

 

After church we resumed with the gift unwrapping...and the eating. 

    

These pics are for Kens and Winter (she loved them)!!

 

The mess of Christmas is so much fun… until presents are done!  What a disaster zone!

One  of the first presents Jade opened was a cash register, and after that we had to keep pushing her to open more.  All she wanted to do is play with it!  I’m pretty sure that is what she is doing in the above picture. 

My kids were so lucky to have Christmas night jammies too—from Grandma and Grandpa Rowland.  Check ‘em out from the front…

…and the back.

What a fun and memorable Christmas!  Thanks again to the Rowlands for spending it with us!!!