After spending Christmas in Utah last year the kids asked us if this year we could stay home in Omaha for Christmas day. They really wanted to have Santa come to our house and open presents under our tree. So we decided to stay home for Christmas.
Usually we spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day going from one family event to another, but this year it was just our little family of 5.
It was probably a good thing we weren't planning on traveling to Utah before Christmas because there was a big winter storm making it's way across the west the week before Christmas and 1-80 was shut down in Wyoming for several days before Christmas. On Christmas Eve Day the storm reached Omaha and provided us with the perfect White Christmas! Since we had nowhere to be we bundled up and spent the day playing out in the snow. When Christmas Eve rolled around we had to get a little bit creative trying to keep some of our main traditions without having other family around. We usually dress up and act out the nativity with all our cousins, but with such a limited cast we decided to tap into our kids current love of coloring and have them color nativity pictures and then hang them up on the wall as we told the nativity story. We enjoyed a yummy candlelight dinner and then the kids opened up their Christmas Eve presents which were robes and slippers this year. At times it didn't quite feel like Christmas without extended family all around us, but after we were all in bed we still heard Santa's sleigh bells ringing outside and knew that whether in Utah or Omaha, Christmas was coming!
Waking up on Christmas morning and going downstairs to open presents in our own house was great and we were all really glad we had stayed. Santa found us and as always brought lots of fun stuff. Mason got his pokemon cards, Brynn got Lucy a robot dog and some school teacher supplies, Miles got his orange ninja turtle dream light and a paw patrol toy.
Christmas morning held a few surprises for the kids. This year Scott and I decided rather than giving the kids more stuff that they didn't need we were going to give them an experience. We surprised them by planning a trip to Florida to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Disney World. We wrapped up several gifts to represent the different parts of the trip including Airfare to Florida, 7 night stay in a hotel, tickets to Universal Studios and Disney World, Lunch at the 3 Broomsticks with butterbeer, a Wand from Ollivander's shop or another souvonier of choice. The kids were all just as excited as we hoped.
We also decided to surprise the kids and my family by telling them that I was pregnant and we would be having another baby in the summer. Honestly I think the kids were more excited for that than the Florida trip. My parents were in complete disbelief but after the shock wore off very excited.
The rest of the day was pretty low key as we played with new toys and got packed and ready to leave for Utah the next day. That pretty much sums up our Christmas at home.
