We are so thankful to have the chance to visit extended family for Christmas each year, but we still haven't quite figured out how to do our own "small family" Christmas. Up until this year, it hasn't mattered too much since Ian was too little to really look forward to Christmas. This year, we decided that we'd celebrate our family Christmas on Epiphany (the 12th day of Christmas, when we celebrate the Wise Men coming to visit Jesus). Do any of YOU that travel over the holidays have ideas for traditions for small-family Christmas celebrations either before or after Christmas?? We'd love to hear your ideas.
As it turned out, we ended up having our small family Christmas on January 3. Ian had helped Kim shop for some presents for Ryan on January 2, and Ian just couldn't wait all the way until January 6 to have Ryan open them. :)
We had given Ian $10 to spend on a gift for Ryan. Ian thought long and hard while we were in Walmart until he finally settled upon a bubble blower for the bathtub. Ryan loves it (and, coincidentally, Ian does, too!)
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| Ian was SO excitedf or Ryan to open the gift from him |
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| Ian wanted to take a bath IMMEDIATELY after finishing unwrapping the gifts! |
Ian's #1 requested gift this year was an umbrella! We got him a fireman umbrella to match his fireman boots. When he opened the gift, he said, "Just what I have always wanted!" It was so cute!
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| Thankfully we got some showers soon after opening gifts so Ian could test it out! |
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| Ryan wasn't sure what to think of the yogurt melts he got in his stocking. Hmm.... |
1 comment:
We travel every Christmas, but we haven't started any small family Christmas traditions yet. We cart all our gifts and stockings to whoever's house we're going to be at for Christmas and open them there. Since we've been able to fit them in the car so far, and we always have at least two Christmas celebrations with different families anyway, we didn't want to introduce yet another Christmas gift-opening extravaganza. I figure that our kids are so excited about seeing their larger family on Christmas anyway, that they will treasure the grandparent/cousin time more than anything we do as a small family.
Sorry, I know that doesn't help you. If you think of a creative and elegant solution, maybe we'll copy you one of these years.
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