After everyone left, we quickly whipped the house back into shape, and got into the spirit of Christmas as fast as possible... which meant setting up the tree and transforming the living room with greenery, our nativity set and our snowman collection. Friday morning, we were up early and on our way to Princeville in record time. We enjoyed a full day celebrating Christmas with Mom's side of the family with all of our annual traditions! It was exciting to have everyone there including new additions to the family ... we were only missing Caleb who is in India for the year, and while it wasn't the same without him, we were able to Skype!
(haylie gets credit for most of these photos! :)
Beginning the day with devotions and music recital!
We switched things up a little bit this year, incorporating some different activities while deleting some traditions that have stopped working so well with the growing group. The younger generation of cousins got to participate in a little gift grab this year!
Haylie and I worked with the kids to put together a little play again this year. We decided to feature Charlotte's Web which we realized was a little harder than at first thought :).
We enjoyed doing some minute to win it games as a group - it got lively! But what can you expect when you have a group of 45 and insert donuts on a string, Vaseline on noses, plates of whipped cream, and electrocuted porcupines?
For this one, the team members had to suck up as many beans as possible with a straw. The other games I only have videos of, not pictures... so I'll just let you imagine what they looked like :)
Instead of a gift grab with the adults and older cousins, we a did a service project this year. We decorated and filled 40+ bags with non perishable food items.. a ham will be added by a local food pantry, and they will be given to families for a Christmas dinner!
Decorating the bags was a fun project to do all together... lots of creativity!
In grandma's old house, she used to measure and record the grandchildren's heights on a wall in her basement. As a way of continuing the tradition, she likes to organize a height picture of the grandchildren each year :)
After the fun ended at the villa for the day, those of us who no longer have required bed times enjoyed hanging out together at Grant and Hannah's ;)
what could be better than group games, snacks, hot drinks and laughing with this great group?!
(photo credit: Hannah)
Saturday morning, Grandpa and Grandma, their children and spouses enjoyed breakfast together while the rest of us hung out at a local shed with more group games... only this time, we made it active. How about "I never" with an extremely spread out circle all around the shed?!
Everyone gradually made their way home after lunch on Saturday and our family enjoyed some relaxing around Grandpa and Grandma's condo. It was delightful to spend the evening with the Herrmann family for supper and chatting around their fireplace! Then, it was time for us to make our way home, too. It was another great Leman Christmas! And it thoroughly got us excited for Christmas... we never take the holiday lightly around here :). Stay tuned for a post about a new Christmas activity we enjoyed as a family yesterday! -faith
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