How We Spent Christmas Day

I have to say that this Christmas made me a little nervous because it was our first one as our small little family.  We decided this year not to go back for Christmas and spend our money on a cruise last summer.  We've never spent Christmas together.  Even back in the states we traveled to California to spend with our cousins or the girls visited their Dad in Utah.  The girls were pretty nervous and because they're one of the older cousins in the Schultz family, they really hold the Christmas traditions as super important.  They were pretty nervous they wouldn't have a good year, but I assured them that most of the extended family was doing their own thing anyway.  They gave it a chance.   I think it turned out awesome.  Here's how we spent Christmas Day.

Christmas Morning

The favorite tradition!  waiting on the stairs for Christmas presents.  They wait until everyone is ready and then when the parents are ready at the bottom, they run down the stairs to see what Santa had brought.  They're allowed to look into their stocking and open any presents inside.  Then we started passing out the Homemade Presents.

Homemade Presents

To see what our Homemade Present tradition is, click here for the first post.

Present Opening

After we opened our Homemade Christmas presents, we also opened the rest of the presents under the tree. Another tradition the girls love is handing out the presents one at a time.  Then we all open one present at the same time, then go around the room and show everyone what they got.  This year I think was a really great Christmas. They got almost everything on their list and I was, for the first time, not nervous they were going to be disappointed.

I didn't catch very many pictures, but here are a few.  There's a video about 3 pictures down, which is of the big present we're getting them this year. We couldn't get a real one because of other circumstances, so we'll have to look in the next few weeks.  

Christmas Dinner

Xoe and Xanthe love having people over for dinner, so we invited a family for Christmas Dinner.   At the last minute they all got sick.  We weren't sure what to do for Christmas Dinner until at the last minute we received an invitation from the Bushman family.  My friend, Jenni, was visiting with her friend, Sammy, and I hadn't been able to see them yet.  I was so excited to go see them and it was perfect timing. we had a fabulous time.

One of my favorite moments was when Jenni's mother asked us to sing.  We weren't prepared so we just sort of sat down playing through Christmas songs.  We didn't sing anything as a performance, we just sort of sang at the piano.  We had such a great time, a lot of laughs and a ton of Christmas Spirit.  One of my favorite Christmases for sure.

Christmas Movie Night

One of our long-standing family Christmas traditions is to go to the movies on Christmas Day.  We left the Bushman's house to go to the movies on base.  The only movie was Walking with Dinosaurs in 3-D, one that Spencer has been counting down the days to see.  The girls reluctantly joined us but it was a fun family night.

What a great Christmas!!!  I love our little family!

Our Christmas Eve Festivities

Me, Annie, Xanthe, Laura (Annie's sister visiting from Washington), Jason (Annie's husband) and Brian

Christmas Eve was spent with my dear friend, Annie Tintle and her family.  We love their family.  They are moving in June and we will be devastated.  Seriously. I get super sad when people leave but I've never had a kindred spirit like Annie.  So, of course we want to spend every waking moment together.  Only catch? She lives 1 1/2 hours from me.  But we try every minute to get together.

Harrison (Annie's oldest), two elders from our church and Xoe.

Xoe and Xanthe took a bunch of selfies on my phone.  How beautiful are they? I just had to post for my memories.

Spencer loves her kids!  You can't see Xanthe but she's trapped underneath.  Those are her black and white leggings.

Annie has caught on that caroling is becoming lost. No one wants to go.  No one wants people to come.   She was determined so she came up with something new and improved.  Mexican caroling!  It's a fun way and the only way she'll get her kids to go.  Singing Feliz Navidad complete with ukeleles, maracas and drums.  Next year sombreros will be added in. I have to tell you I was nervous at first but once we got out there, everyone LOVED it.  No one felt awkward and two American houses turned into 3 extra German houses.  The Germans even knew the song. :)  The first video is our practice. It was a bit rough and we got better, but this one is cute cuz you can see the kids dancing and singing.  

Check out this video.  Brian even got into it. Right at the beginning. Then he saw me recording and scooted back. Haha!

After hanging at Annie's, we headed home for our own Christmas Eve traditions.

Best Gift Ever!!!

Someone knows me too well.  This showed up on our door a few weeks ago. This person obviously knew I was loving the Coca-Cola promotion where they wrote people's names on Coke bottles.  I've looked around for friends' names and my own.  But of course I never found any of our names.  See the ones I actually took pictures of below.

A dear friend, whom I still don't know the identity of, ordered this off a website and sent it as a fun Christmas gift to us.  You have no idea how much it made my day!

Halloween Night-Trick or Treating-OLD POST

Now that the girls are teenagers, they no longer want to hang out with us for trick-or-treating. They met up with their friends to do some trick-or-treating.  If I come across pictures from their phones I'll post them here.  But for now, it was just me, Spencer and Brian.

Spencer's good friend, Ilana's parents invited us over to go trick-or-treating then food afterwards.  They were in heaven as you can tell from their holding hands while walking.

He kept asking for lots of pieces.  I kept trying to teach him he only got one from each place.  I had actually brought bags of candy to give away to those giving out candy.  The way it works here is since not many Germans celebrate Halloween (it's only recently starting to be celebrated), all those who live on the American base hand out candy. Thousands and thousands of people, including Germans, come to get candy. It's so crazy in some places we avoid those areas.  And since we don't live on the American base, we don't have to buy candy.  Candy is pretty expensive.  And it kind of stinks that those who live in base have to put out such a huge expense.  So I usually buy about 10 bags of candy and give it out to friends I know on base, or walk around with a bag and give it to those I can tell are running out.  This way I also didn't feel so bad about my son who wanted a ton of candy (and will never actually eat it, but use it as train cargo).

There were some pretty amazing decorations out.

Ilana wearing Spencer's hat back at the house.

Back at the house, Matt (seen here) and Heidi Shea made German style pizzas and had some fun snacks for us.  I brought some wassail and pumpkins to carve.  Carving pumpkins are right up there with dying eggs, my two least favorite activities.  Matt was seriously the bomb to carve pumpkins for Spencer.  And Spencer chatted his ear off the whole time.  Look at the next few pictures. Matt never seemed annoyed and was totally engaged the whole time.

You know I love Halloween right? How could I pass up these balloons?

Me again.  It really didn't do the costume justice. I just couldn't  get a good picture of myself.    But there you go.  It helps my skin is so naturally white. :)