Scenes from our Christmas

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Our Christmas festivities this year started on Christmas Eve. We headed out of town to my in-law’s house for a family dinner and gift exchange. Brooke loved hanging out with her cousins and didn’t want to leave. After dinner and cookie decorating, the cousins opened up some new pajamas and did a secret santa exchange. Funny faces!!
Brooke had her cousin’s name for secret santa. Aren’t these girls so cute?!Here’s Blake’s secret santa gift. We let him open his present last because he was having so much fun with the box.Seriously, he was banging away. Such a happy little guy! He wasn’t so sure of the presents inside….lol! Look at how big his eyes were.
The adults did a white elephant gift exchange and my sister-in-law and I got……white elephants. Well, that is before they got stolen from us. RUDE! By the time we left, it was pretty late but thankfully our kids slept the majority of the 1 1/2 hour ride home. Then before we knew it, Christmas morning had come! And, Santa stopped by our house!Someone was a little excited….Cute little tired kiddos in front of our tree 🙂 Here are our stockings…and!! My husband just finished this mantle last week so we’d have a place to put our stockings! Isn’t it purdy? I love it!Breakfast was some raspberry cinnamon pull apart bread…..did I mention I love carbs? This recipe is a combination of this one and this one, smashed together. Minus the egg nog and canned cinnamon rolls. A certain someone loved them, but there’s no surprise there. Notice she changed into her new Elsa dress {from Frozen}. This pull apart bread was seriously dreamy. Maybe I’ll post the recipe soon.The rest of the morning was spent putting toys together. Please note the outfit change. Mid afternoon, we had our Christmas dinner: roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes and sautéed brussels sprouts. This meat was so amazing. The oven gods were smiling down on me because this was the most perfect roast beef ever. We all got dressed nicely for dinner and then skyped with my family. I think this was Brooke’s 4th outfit of the day. Lol! Then for dessert, we enjoyed my grandma’s Hazelnut Torte. I have had this recipe for quite a white, but never had the guts to make it. So I gave it a whirl and it was divine! Obviously not as good as my grandma’s but definitely on the right track.

All in all, we had a blessed Christmas season. Hope you all had a lovely few days off celebrating too 🙂