Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, and considering this was the first with our little guy, it was even more special!  Unfortunately our Christmas break was plagued with a stomach bug, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying all our time together as a family.  We love this time of year!

Christmas Day was on Tuesday, and the weekend before, Isaac had picked up a stomach bug and was down on Friday and Saturday.  Then, he passed it on to me (Tiff) and I was down for Sunday and Monday (Christmas Eve).  It wasn’t quite the holiday we were expecting, but thankfully the bug was pretty short-lived and we were able to recover by Christmas Day!

On Christmas Eve, we went to Nonnie and Grandpa’s house for the annual Nixon family Christmas Eve celebrations.  It was fun to see so many members of our extended family — pretty much everyone was there!  The food was good, the company was good, and it was special to be able to share these holiday traditions as a family.  Santa even arrived!  It was a little weird because he had these “elves” with him who ended up awkwardly being in all the pictures, but overall, it was still a fun night.  All of the Turley cousins even got matching jammies, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa — they all looked so adorable!

After we got home, we lit our final night of the advent candle, read a Christmas story, and then took a few pics of our cute little guy.  He seems to love Christmas as much as we do!

Christmas morning we woke up about 7:00am, and when we went upstairs to get our little guy, he was just so happy!

We then opened gifts, and while our little guy didn’t totally get it, he did seem to enjoy ripping the paper!

After gifts, we opened our stockings.  We’d gotten Isaac a few little things, all Christmas themed and colored, and he seemed to love his new gifts!  We’d also gotten each other a stocking, and that was a fun experience!  The Saturday before, we’d gone to Target and set a time limit to separate and get stocking stuffers for each other — it was a blast and a fun new tradition we’ll likely continue!

Isaac then played with his toys while daddy spoke with Matthew and Emily on the phone and mommy made breakfast.  We decided to do something a little different this year for Christmas, so we got an ebelskiver pan and they turned out delicious!  It was a wonderful and relaxing morning!

In the afternoon, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Turley’s house to visit with our Turley family.  It was fun to see everyone and celebrate the holiday!  After visiting with the Turleys, we went up to Nonnie and Grandpa’s house to wish Nonnie a Happy Birthday.  It was great to see them, especially without the crowds of everyone around!

In the evening, we ended up opening our matching family pajamas — it was so fun to be all matching as a family and this is one of mommy’s dreams come true!  It was a wonderful day and we are excited that next Christmas, we’ll be able to share these fun traditions with Baby Girl, too!