Christmas Traditions

I am so thankful that I have simplified our Christmas traditions in recent years. This year we were hit early in the month with tragedy (when a dear coworker of mine died tragically)  and illness (which put me out of commission for days), and I don't think we felt quite up to having Christmas until, well, until Christmas! Thankfully, we had been reading Christmas picture books to the kids at night along with Luke's account of Christmas, and the house was decorated, so it didn't feel like we missing out on the season too much.

Another tradition we slid in were our Christmas pajama and stocking photos. We think of Grandma Player every time we take these shots.

Elias loves the Zoobs most, it's true, but he's been playing a lot of Jenga lately and his calculator has gotten a lot of use.

Amelia couldn't decided which present was her favorite: her new American Girl doll from Santa or her leotards for gymnastics.

In J's defense, he had just had a little bit of a sneezing fit when I snapped these.

J's favorite gift this year was a total surprise: a QB target for perfecting his spiral. We also hit the jackpot by surprising him what a backpacking tent.