Catching up on Christmas....

First, I never told about our Ward Christmas Party. The theme was The Polar Express, so everyone dressed in pajamas. It was the best planned and executed Christmas party that I've every been to (which isn't that many). They read the Polar Express story, enacted Christ's Birth, had good food, desserts, decorations; it was truely amazing.

Here's Van sampling the cocoa, with a resulting cocoa mustache:

Weston playing with a Christmas bell.

Van playing some 'Reindeer Games'

Weston has been on the verge of crawling for a while now--we were hoping he wouldn't figure it out til after Christmas. Phew, dodged that bullet! He still somehow would end up underneath the tree; little stinker (dont worry--no tree mishaps).

We spent Christmas Eve with our good friends, Paul and Blythe. We had a nice dinner, watched a Christmas movie, and went to a nearby park with cool decorations (it was freezing so we only stayed about 10 min).

We were spoiled this Christmas. Thanks to everyone who gave to our family this year!!! We love everything we got. Here is Van Christmas morning finding the presents under the tree (he didn't quite know what to make of it all):

As an extra side note: This year brought me a new dilema: Santa! Growing up, I didn't know about Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas, all I knew was the jolly fat man who brought you presents. I was kinda torn on whether or not to introduce Van to this magical mystical character. I felt like I didn't want Santa to trump Christ. I think the real problem for me was that I didn't know how to make it work in my head=why would a fat man be bringing me presents and what does that have to do with Christ's birth? It took a lot of pondering...and asking church friends to work it out.

Here it goes, in the most simplistic version I could create for Van to understand: It is Jesus' birthday. Santa is bringing us gifts to celebrate Jesus' birthday. We also made sure that we taught/read/watched movies of Christ's birth (we drilled it in). I want Van to know that the true meaning of Christmas is the birth of our Savior and not just getting stuff from Santa.