Tuesday, December 24, 2013

First Annual Christmas Adam

A few weeks back, we had a Relief Society activity in which a sister shared her family's tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree the night before Christmas Eve--they call it the Night Before the Night Before. Get it? Before Christmas. Anyway. I thought it was a fun idea, though I opted to title the day's festivities "Christmas Adam", since that's what my mom always called that day. Adam came before Eve--get it? Ha.

This was a party all about our little family--just the five of us. No other visitors. It's been a big focus of ours to make our family stronger and closer with our moves to Albuquerque and now Atlanta, and this night was a great testament to the success we've had thus far.

Starting around 6:00, we broke out the games. Christmas Bingo first. I think this is the first time the kids have really played bingo ever. It was fun. And nothing could top the Christmas m&ms.





Ben did his best--and he has such an expressive face to show his stages of understanding.





Christmas memory second.


The next activity lasted a good hour all by itself. Chris made these blocks earlier in the day. Seriously. We went to Home Depot, bought some 2x4s and he spent the afternoon out in the breezeway of our building with his miter saw.







While he and the kids built, I sanded more of the blocks. The sanding wasn't done, but we had plenty to play with anyway.



Playdough. Nothing particularly Christmas-y about this one, other than the fact that we NEVER get playdough out, so this was a notable special occasion.


While they played, Chris and I made soft pretzels from scratch. This is definitely a tradition I wouldn't mind keeping up.


Hot chocolate and pretzels to round out the night.



We knew the night was running late at the point that Ben started crying about his marshmallows--he loves marshmallows, and it is not something that generally brings tears.


I asked him if he wanted to lay down. He looked straight at me, nodded, and walked to the couch. He was asleep almost instantly.


Can't say that I blame him--it was 10:00, and they usually go to bed at 7:00.

We finally finished evening with getting our beds all set up and watching The Forgotten Carols on DVD. Megan shocked me when she stayed awake until the movie ended, which was almost midnight.


Final verdict on our new tradition? The party was awesome, but I'm not 100% sold on actually sleeping in the living room. The kids were up and down all night long, and air mattresses are never as reliable as you want them to be. Next year might just be a stay up really late then go sleep in your own bed party. But all in all, a success!


3 comments:

Liz, Karl, Madison, Brooklyn, Aubrey and Zachary said...

What a fun idea! We need to do more "Our own little family" type activities. We don't have many traditions that are just ours and I think it's about time we start. I loved all the pictures of Ben's faces during bingo by the way. What a funny kid.

Tannie Datwyler said...

SO fun Laura. I completely love the Christmas Bingo.

Ruby in the Rough said...

I love this idea!!! Maybe we'll try it next year. Jay and I cracked up at the name, "Christmas Adam". Hahaha! I'm going to steal that.