Anyhoo, we started out in the morning at Joseph's Mom's house with our LIVE nativity and soup and snacks bar. We stayed inside this year because of all the newborn babies. I was thankful for that, but we did miss being with the animals and having someone ride by on a horse as the Roman Soldier.
Joseph's mom has a never-ending bin of nativity clothes for everyone to wear...and every year she pleads with the children (and adults) to do a reverent sort of re-enactment. It's as reverent as you can expect with 30+ grandchildren and 20+ adults present. (I loved President Eyring's Christmas devotional message this year and hearing about his family's attempt to have the perfectly reverent nativity.)
Grandma Shawny with her festive apron and our festive baby Isaac!
After the nativity and our lunch the dad's took the little kids outside to play in the snow and to be towed by the four-wheeler in a long chain of sleds across the property. Grandma Shawny lives on 3 1/2 acres, so there was plenty of space and snow to have lots of fun!
The kids loved it...and they didn't even mind that they didn't have the warmest of winter clothes. Joseph wanted to go and buy some snow clothes for the trip, but I didn't want to spend the money for a week's worth of snow play. They had to wear thick jackets and snow pants from 2 seasons ago when we did live where it snowed.
Aaron was wiped out from the events of the day.
That evening we headed back to my parent's home where my mom had prepared our Christmas dinner. I told her before we came that she should nix the traditions for this year. Things were so stressful at their house the few days leading up to Christmas (because of the wedding). It was crazy and out of control. She insisted that she should do it all....I don't know whether to call her crazy or amazing. She ran around all day doing preparations for the wedding, which was the day after Christmas...and then came home to make a turkey dinner, with potatoes, veggies, homemade rolls, etc., and then woke up the next morning and made our traditional homemade Quiche and cinnamon roll breakfast. I have to hand it to her though, she did use pre-made crusts to simplify things a tad bit. The stress in the house was driving us all crazy, but by the time Christmas Eve and morning came, things were much better. Christmas night and the day of the wedding the craziness struck again, but it wasn't as bad as before.
This has nothing to do with Christmas, but after we acted out the nativity at my parent's house, everyone was in the spirit of dressing up. My mom hated seeing Aaron in the girl's princess dress-ups, so she insisted they go find the police officer and fire fighter costumes. Aaron was in heaven and very proud of his get-up!
The kids opened up their first present of Christmas and were thrilled to get matching pajamas for themselves and their dolls (and cars :)). 
Then off to bed, so Santa Claus could make his visit! 
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