The Adventures of Us: 2012 Christmas Recap

I can't believe Christmas was a month ago! It’s a little late, but better late than never. Here’s a recap of Christmas 2012.

For a couple years now, we spend Christmas Eve – the 24^thof December with my family & Christmas Day – December 25^th with Byron’s family. As of last year things changed slightly. Byron, Hugo, Roxy & I started spending Christmas morning at home & then we head to my in-laws once we are done.

This year for Christmas Eve we headed down to the City to spend it with my family. The tradition since I was little is a family dinner with all my aunts, uncles & cousins, followed by opening presents.

Here's a look at our Christmas Eve.

Just before we headed down to the city.

Before dinner, we quickly took a couple photos while Hugo was still in a good mood.

Hugo with his Madrinha, saying cheese

Hugo was fascinated with my Grandma's bow on her shirt. He still makes strange when he hasn't seen someone in a while, but he was ok with my grandma, which was nice to see.

I asked my cousin to take a quick picture of our little family.

After the quick pictures, dinner was ready. The little girls (who are 10 & 11) did a great job folding the napkins into Elf Hats. We had to get Hugo to model it for us.

After dinner, we were off to open gifts. Usually the gift opening starts with the youngest person present followed by the next youngest, etc., etc., until everyone has opened all their gifts. This usually takes a couple hours.

At around 12:00 a.m. we started to pack up everything. Hugo received lots of wonderful gifts. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives.

Hugo right before we headed home ... wide awake at around 12:15 a.m.

We headed home and luckily this year only encountered a little bit of snow on the drive home. This made for a decent drive home. When we got home we must have just missed Santa.

Photo taken shortly after we were home - at around 3:00 a.m.

Santa Left a Waggon filled with gifts for Hugo!!

Once we went to bed, Christmas morning came quick, as Hugo was awake early.

Hugo was extremely curious about all the gifts. Starting with the photo “1” moving to the right you can see the direction he took. He first checked out all the presents Santa had left for him. Then he went and checked out the big bone & gift Santa left for Roxy (Roxy spent the night at my in-laws). He then was trying to decide what gift to open first. He decided to open the gift bag first & made sure he read the tag first to ensure it was his gift I guess. He quickly got the hang of opening the gifts, but after a couple he had had enough and just wanted to play with the gifts he had opened.

While Hugo was checking out all his gifts before he started to open them, I popped my cinnamon buns into the oven and baked them. That’s one Christmas tradition that I hope to carry on for many years to come. A couple years back we use to try and grab a Tim Horton’s coffee before we headed to my in-laws for Christmas day. There was one problem with this though. On Christmas day most Timmies are closed & often only 1 Timmies location was opened in the city. The location would change each year, which made it difficult to find the one that was opened and once we would find it, it was always extremely busy. We would end up waiting for an hour or longer to grab our coffees {insert sad face}. After doing this for 2 years I think we gave up on it and started a new tradition. For the past 4 or 5 years I can’t remember now, I always bake fresh from scratch cinnamon buns on Christmas morning complete with cream cheese icing. It is the only time of the year I make them as they are supper unhealthy & pack filled with calories. They are a Christmas treat for us & any guests that are around. Byron & a couple of my cousins who have had cinnabon cinnamon buns have said that my cinnamon buns are better {makes me ecstatic}.

Once Hugo was done his nap we headed to my in-laws. This year I brought a Cesar salad & dessert ... cinnamon buns.

Once we got to my in-laws we opened gifts & checked out what was in our stockings. Hugo showing off his taai taai & his chocolate letter. My father in-law is Dutch so we always have Dutch treats in our stockings at Oma & Opa’s house.