Christmas Eve & Morning

On Christmas Eve, some of the fam went to see the Nutcracker! The rest of the clan stayed home with Gaga.

Ballet West does such an outstanding job with this magical performance. We were all thrilled when during the very last scene, when all the performers were on the stage, Santa flew over them in his sleigh, and I didn't think this show could get any more amazing. Such a fun surprise.

And then Santa was in the lobby wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

When we got home, it was time for Christmas Eve dinner

Then it was time for our annual Christmas concert where all the grandkids play a Christmas song they have been working on

V wanted to participate this year, so she and Beth sang Remember me from Coco

We sure have a talented group of grandkids in our family!

It was so awesome to have Andrew back from his mission, we have missed him the past two years.

He enjoyed teasing all of us by taking extremely close, unflattering photos of unsuspecting family members and then giggled at them ....

Dad made a delicious, chocolate peppermint cake for dessert

Santa Monty made an appearance.

The night ended with mom hosting Grandpa's treasure hunt. Each child gets one present on Christmas Eve, it's always a book or some other fun way of learning, Grandpa Christensen really valued education. The older boys hid the presents all over the house, and the littles went hunting for them. They were all thrilled with their gifts!

Then it was off to bed, to have dreams of sugar plums dancing in our heads.

Christmas morning began early for me, so that I could see all my clients before heading up to Salt Lake for our holiday festivities.

I did all my visits in my Christmas pajamas, even though my job requires me to work on Christmas morning, at least its the kind of job where I can wear pajamas to work.

We had a big snowstorm through the night, so we woke up to a white Christmas wonderland! The drive into Mom and Dad's neighborhood was gorgeous.

I'm always excited for our Christmas morning breakfast of our homemade cinnamon rolls with freshly made icing!

After breakfast, Karin had all of us sneak to the craft room to make a special surprise gift for mom and dad.

Everyone in the family made a figure our of modeling clay for a nativity

It turned out pretty cute, my contribution were those three sheep and the shepherd on the right.

Bethy made the angel.

Then it was time for presents in the Christmas room!

This was Monty's first Christmas!

I had the Burtons this year, the little boys were super excited about their gifts I had picked out for them.

Mom got me these beautiful earrings and a box of delicious smelling bath bombs. I love taking baths and take a lot of them in the winter time. I love adding in a bath bomb, its so fun and luxurious and leaves my skin and bathroom smelling amazing.

These two have a complicated relationship. Monty absolutely adores Dorie, and wants to be close to her and pet her. But Monty makes Dorie super nervous, so she doesn't like it when he is close by.

But she loves it when I am close by! I love my doggy niece so much, she is such a sweetheart and I love that she gets to come and spend the holidays with us.