Christmas Eve was wonderful again this year. The girls are another year older, and it was a joy to continue to teach them the reason for Christmas, and a love for this holiday. Laylie and I had a moment on her bed the day before Christmas Eve, she was having a hard time dealing with being ungrateful. We talked for a long time, as she sat on my lap, that there are times when we can get too focused on all of the gifts, all of the fun events, or even a fat man named Santa, but we always need to be thinking about the true meaning of Christmas: our sweet Savior's birth that happened all those years ago.
On Christmas Eve, we had a super fun day celebrating with the Troncone family with our traditions: playing board games earlier in the day, eating a tasty dinner by the fire, and singing Christmas carols while Jason played his guitar. My parents' home was decorated from top to bottom with beautiful Christmas decor. Later that night, the children performed an adorable manger scene play, acted out by all of the cousins with Laylie playing Mary and Rael as an angel. All of us opened up our gifts, and before we left my parents' house we did our last tradition - one at a time we lit a candle and said a birthday gift we wanted to give to God this year before passing the light to the next person. It's always wonderful to leave Christmas Eve remembering reason for the season.
Christmas day we had a great time being with our little family in our new home. The girls woke up early and we did our annual Christmas morning photo on the stairs. We enjoyed opening up gifts with Christmas music playing softly in the background. There was a wonderful smell of cinnamon rolls baking in the oven and Christmas lights were shining brightly from the tree and garlands. The best part of the morning was....we found out that we are having a baby BOY!!! We cannot believe it and we are so overjoyed. As we opened up the envelope on Christmas morning, screams of delight came from the girls and I and tears of joy came from Jason. We can't wait to meet our little son and bring him into our family. We are getting really excited to meet him and hold him. After all of the excitement, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, ate a tasty breakfast around our dining room table, and the girls had fun riding their new bikes and scooters outside. Later in the evening, Mamoe and Grandad joined us for dinner, dessert, and Christmas light looking around the neighborhood. We surprised them with a red little box with Jason's tiny blue shoes he wore when he was a newborn to tell them they are having a grandson. It was a perfect day!
The Christmas celebration didn't end - on Saturday, we gathered together with the White Family. We had a fantastic time being with family, laughing, relaxing, and enjoying Christmas. We all sat around the tree opening up gifts and having great time opening up Mamoe's punch boxes - a gift card game she invented a few years back where we punch our hands into a tissue paper covered box and pull out a random gift card. We had another wonderful surprise...Jason's sister Jillian is pregnant with their 5th! We are so happy for them and for our little boy to have a cousin only 3 months younger than him.
It is going to be such a great year and I am looking forward to seeing it all unfold. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years - we're sending our greetings to you all!
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