{"id":315,"date":"2009-01-10T04:00:12","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T11:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=315"},"modified":"2009-01-10T04:00:12","modified_gmt":"2009-01-10T11:00:12","slug":"christmastime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"Christmastime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Christmas was a little bit hectic this year, but it was great! We found the time to do some fun Christmastime activities together, indulge in some Christmas goodies, and spend time together. We saw Santa, made gingerbread houses, and decorated. And even though gift purchasing was still in full swing on Christmas Eve, we managed to get everything we needed to get (and get it wrapped) before heading to bed that night. We enjoyed our gifts this year, but the best part was having our little boy home from the hospital and having our little family all together.On Christmas Eve we shared the story of Jesus’ birth with Bridget, and let her watch a little video on it. We were impressed at the details she remembered from the story. It was the first year that we didn’t just read Luke 2… we did our best to tell the story in a way a toddler would understand. That night we each opened one gift from under the tree. A sudoku book for me. Pajamas for Dave. And “The Grinch who Stole Christmas” (classic version) for Bridget and Spencer. Afterwards we dined on chocolate and watched the kids’ new movie. Then off to bed!<\/p>\n

That night Santa made an awful ruckus downstairs… but thankfully both little ones stayed sleeping.<\/p>\n

Christmas morning was very relaxed. We started the morning slow, all cuddled in our bed, having Bridget tell us what she remembered about the story of Jesus’ birth. When it was time to go down and see what Santa brought, Dave headed down first ‘oohing and awing’ at what he saw. Then the rest of us came to see what Santa brought. That’s when it got funny… Bridget had asked Santa for a doll stroller and pink sunglasses – both of which he brought. But when she saw other things, things that she didn’t ask for, she looked at them and simply said, “What? I didn’t ask Santa for this!”<\/em> She was more concerned about what Santa wasn’t supposed to bring that with what he did actually bring. LOL! Though when we asked her if she wanted us to return the gifts she decided that it would be okay to keep them.<\/p>\n

Later that day Dave’s parents came up to visit. We had hot chocolate and bread with them, visited, and opened more gifts. It was great to spend some time with family and to be able to relax at home.<\/p>\n

Here are a few<\/strong> pictures of our Christmastime activities.<\/p>\n

Testing lights. Lots and lots of lights…
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Admiring the tree…
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Playing in the snow…
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Our stylish gram cracker gingerbread houses…
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Christmas Eve…
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Christmas morning. Bridget and her stocking…
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Spencer and his stocking…
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Bridget and her gift to Daddy…
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A much needed suit…
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Wahoo! Now I can grind my own wheat…
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Playing dress-up in her new princess dress…
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Grandma and Grandpa are here…
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Grandma & Bridget…
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Grandma & Spencer…
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We sure had a great Christmas break! In fact, now that we are back to real life, we’d like to petition to bring back Christmas vacation! All in favor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our Christmas was a little bit hectic this year, but it was great! We found the time to do some fun Christmastime activities together, indulge in some Christmas goodies, and spend time together. We saw Santa, made gingerbread houses, and decorated. And even though gift purchasing was still in full swing on Christmas Eve, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,6,8,15,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life","category-bridget","category-dave","category-family-life","category-spencer","category-tina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.ernstrom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}