Christmas Kickoff

Our Christmas Kickoff is one of our family's favorite Christmas traditions. Even so, our budget for the kickoff is only $25. Just enough to buy a few treats and a small game or something to put into our Kickoff Box. This year, however, David won a Ninja Creami Deluxe at his work Christmas Party. (It was hilarious because something came up and I said, "That's what I'd want!" and then the Creami came up and David said, "But that's what I'D want." I agreed, "that IS what you would want," and immediately they called "David Peaden!". We were very excited and decided to include the Creami into our Christmas Kickoff Celebrations. We had the kids close their eyes while we brought in the box and then we started throwing snowballs at them. 

We spent the rest of the day together, playing games, making candy canes, and eating yummy snacks. We pulled down all of our mattresses and watched "The Grinch" for our movie before falling asleep under the Christmas Tree. 

There was some disagreement about which movie we should watch, so we watched the Grinch that night and then started The Nutcracker and the Four Realms after Caleb and Lucy were asleep. We didn't finish it that night, but we woke up in the morning and finished watching it and we all really enjoyed it. We usually prefer to do the kickoff the week before Christmas, but we ended up doing it on the 23rd this year and it worked well enough. 

When I pulled up the pictures to post about our Christmas Kickoff, I was distressed to discover that we had NONE of us sleeping out under the tree. What!?!? I even called in David to verify that I wasn't just missing the pictures somewhere. But apparently, we were having such a great time that we neglected to take our regular "kids are all sleeping under the Christmas Tree" pictures. 

It's definitely a balance between capturing the fun things that we are doing and also just enjoying the moment, so instead of a beautiful picture of four peaceful kids sleeping under a tree - I'll leave you with this picture of Lydia and I enjoying the Christmas Kickoff together. *heart eyes*

Christmas Kickoff 2020

 Our Christmas Kickoff is one of our very favorite traditions, if not our very favorite. We love having atime for fun Christmas activities for just our immediate family. Something that is planned and set aside. This year we were able to take the whole Saturday for our kickoff activities. We started with our Christmas Kickoff box plus a wrapped gift of a new waffle maker! 

The kids loved their new water bottles and Christmas jammies, plus the new games and treats. We started the day with some delicious waffles and cozy jammies. We played in the snow, drank hot chocolate, played games and enjoyed the day together, ending with pulling our mattresses down from upstairs and watching a movie before sleeping out under the Christmas tree. 

Some other favorite things from the day: 

-Lydia requesting that we carol at the piano while she played Christmas songs. 

-Opening the Christmas Crackers that we made for our Christmas Around the World unit. (Crowns, jokes, and homemade candies were all a big win.) 

-Building our own Foam Nativity

-David surprising me with a new, beautiful, Nativity scene. 

-Falling asleep together under the twinkling of the Christmas Tree. 

(Playing in the snow) 

(Hot chocolate and Lydia playing the piano while we sang next to her.) 

(Nativity) 

(Christmas Crackers) 

Grilled cheese for dinner. 

Dancing to Christmas Music. 

Sleeping under the Tree

There is something magical about spending the whole day together doing intentional activities of bonding then falling asleep together under the Christmas tree. And with that, Christmas is officially here! Tomorrow we will head to West Jordan to start our Christmas week with the Peaden family!