Our family is blessed with family; we have tons and tons of family!!! Christmas celebrations often last days in our lives. We had our first Christmas celebration with Theresa's dad and fiancee Kelly on Saturday the 22nd. It was a great time of food (Kelly made an amazing meal!), gift exchange and games!
The girls with Grandpa Duane & Kelly!
On Sunday morning we were given tickets to attend a Santa Breakfast which benefited the Arthritis Foundation. The breakfast was at the Sherton downtown where the annual gingerbread houses are on display. Here is the girls with just one of the several amazing pieces of art work on display!
Here is the four of us on our way out from the Santa Breakfast, it was very nice that we were able to attend the event!
Sunday evening we had some dear friends over for dinner, it was so nice to spend time with them that we forgot all about capturing the moment, so we will lock that away in our hearts!
The next day was Christmas Eve; that evening we had dinner with Theresa's dads side of the family. It is a pretty large gathering at the Hopper house that evening and to end off a fun gift exchange the "grand-children" all do a fun game:
All the kids sit in a circle and choose a gift from the center (each year the gift is a theme) one year it was cereal boxes; this year it was large candy boxes. From youngest to oldest they get to either take someones candy or open their own box! It is a lot of fun and the kids enjoy the creativity of the game... out of 20 kids not one of the candy's was a duplicate!
After the game, the girls went and put on their new PJ'S they received from Grandpa Bill & Grandma Cindy in Oregon.
Then came Christmas morning; this year it was a bit different than it has been in the past because we stayed home the entire day. Here are two of the treasures that the girls received:
One of our favorite family activities is game time... we have all ready played Apples to Apples (which is super fun and I highly recommend) and Syrah has played hungry hippo 100's of times with whomever would play and if we were busy, she would challenge herself! The girls wanted Molly (who experienced her first Christmas in our home) to have a stocking too... she got some new beads (if you know Molly, you know why!).
Then we had a cinnamon roll picnic breakfast! Yummy!!
For the first time we hosted Christmas dinner at our place; Theresa really enjoyed putting little details into the table and into the dinner!
It all comes down to this... It all starts with God! It isn't about the food, the gifts, the games, the details on the table. It comes down to being about His son that was born and whom we celebrate with a spirit of family and giving. The reason for this season is because of only Him, His love and desire to have a relationship with each and every on of us.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophets: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" which means, "God with us".
Matthew 2:22-23
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