Christmas Day was especially exciting for us this year because we had Grandma and Grandpa Z come to visit!
This was epic because it was the first time that any grandparents have stayed at our house for Christmas. And it was Gramz and Grampz’s first time to EVER be away from their home for Christmas. We felt very honored that they came to visit us!
The night before they arrived, we had a small Christmas Eve feast. The ham was really gross, but the potatoes and other food was very delicious! I put Indian curry powder in the potatoes, it is sooo yummy that way.
Tanner was very excited to get a plate of cookies ready for Santa, even though he knows that Santa is just pretend. It was such a magical thing for us to see, and I wrote all about it in my previous post.
Dallin went to bed early because he was fighting a fever. After Tanner worked hard to fill Dallin’s stocking with the present he got him. He had fun thinking of things that would fit in his brother’s stocking. Actually, both boys had been doing this really well during the weeks leading up to Christmas. Some of the items that Tanner ended up choosing did not fit in the stocking. After thinking through lots of options, Tanner made a treasure hunt for Dallin. He worked on it throughout the day while Dallin rested. The first clue was in the stocking with part of the gift. The plan was that Dallin would read clues and be led around the house to find the gift. Tanner didn’t want any help with making the clues. When he was all done putting the clues in their proper place, Tanner sat with me by the tree for a few minutes. We enjoyed taking in all the excitement and magic of the evening.
The next morning, the boys woke up at about 6:30 am. They came into our room and were so excited. “It’s Christmas!! It’s Jesus’ birthday! Grandma and Grandpa are coming! We get to have cake for Jesus! We get to open our presents!!!” We cuddled and watched a video of the Savior’s birth in our bed. Luckily, Dallin’s fever was much lower this morning. We didn’t have to give him any meds the whole night, so that was encouraging.
We all agreed that the boys would not go downstairs until grandma and grandpa came to our house, which would be around 8:45 am. So we fed the boys a special breakfast in our room. We used the trampoline for a table and I read them books about Jesus being born.
Then we let them watch Elf in the library. When the video came to the part where Buddy is fixing the sleigh and Jovie is singing in central park to save the day, Grandma and Grandpa walked into the room dressed as Buddy and Jovie!!! We had no idea they would be dressed up, and they had no idea we were watching Elf. Magic was in the air!!
Then we let the boys come down the stairs to see their surprises.
We got the boys a big tree swing and a couple nights stay at the Legoland hotel!! Nana and Papa got us tickets to the Legoland Park!
It was really cute watching the boys watch their brother open their stockings. They were really excited to give their brother the gifts they had prepared.
Dallin explaining the gift he got for Tanner- chinese jump ropes.
Tanner watching Dallin open up his gift with excitment.
Tanner showing Dallin how to read the clues with the invisibke ink and find the rest of the gift.
Clue in the bathroom
Clue by the bed
Treasure in the garage by the swim goggles. The gift was really cool swim toys for Dallin to use at our pool.
Giving loves to tell each other thank you! AWWW!
Then it was time to give things to Elf and Mrs. Clause!
Dallin wrote a book at school called “My Trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s House.” We made a beautiful copy of it and included real photos for them of the trip.
Tanner wrote a newspaper magazine for Grandpa called the Gary Gazzette. He was inspired to make this after seeing Jeremy and siblings create a newspaper for Gary’s 60th birthday. Tanner included 2 articles that he wrote himself, several comics that he drew and some advertisements that he created. The boys had so much fun giving these gifts in person to their grandparents!!
We spent a large part of the day opening gifts. We like to take our time with each present and let the boys have fun playing with each one before opening the next. Also fun to note that the legos were something the boys kept coming back to play with in between each gift.
Testing out their new remote control cars from Nana and Papa.
We loved having Christmas in warm weather!!
Testing out the pogo stick from Gramz and Grampz.
We had a beautiful brunch with eggs benedict and roasted veggies and crepes. While our guests took naps, Jeremy baked the Christmas birthday cake using his favorite recipe from Grandma Bernice.
We had a delicious Christmas dinner with Salmon! (There wasn’t any particular reason for salmon other than I knew we could make really yummy salmon on our cast iron skillet). We served the fish with a pineapple cilantro chutney. It was so delicious!! We got a little distracted by things before the meal, so I forgot to take pictures of the food, sorry!
After dinner, we got to do one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We dressed up to tell the nativity!! It was so nice to have two extra people with us because we could include more characters. My scarves came in handy for all of the costumes we needed. Tanner made a fort in the middle of the family room for the stable.
Everyone did a terrific job acting, especially Grandma and Grandpa. Some of us took turns narrating the story directly from Luke and Matthew, and we covered lots of details to the story. It was one of my favorite parts of the entire Christmas season this year!
Cast List:
Gma- Angel Gabriel, King Herad, Anna, Narrator
Gpa- Shepherd, Wise man, Simeon, Narrator
SarahLynn- Mary
Jeremy- Joseph
Tanner- Shepherd boy, Wise man, Temple patron, Narrator
Dallin- By this point, his fever spiked again, so he laid on the couch and watched our play. He decided to be the older baby Jesus when Mary and Joseph escaped to Egypt.
After our nativity play, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and blew out the candles for him. Jeremy did a terrific job baking the cake, and I did the decorative icing. We made the candles look like stars in the sky. I think this is our most beautiful Jesus birthday cake that we’ve ever made! YUMMY!
Our special guests stayed for a couple days after Christmas! Dallin showed off his remote control racecar while Tanner and Jeremy played basketball against Gramz and Grampz. The old folks won, with Grandma making all the points for her team. Tanner was in disbelief.
Dallin got a good nap in one afternoon, getting over his fever episode.
Watching my kids sleep never gets old, I just had to take some pictures of my sweet Cuddle Bug!
We had an AWESOME time at the Maritime Museum, which is in the San Diego Harbor!! This is one of the best kept secrets of San Diego. We enjoyed seeing 7 different ships, submarines and riverboats here. We spent over an hour in the big Star of India, which is the oldest active sailing ship in the world. The boys thought the captain’s quarters looked like the Hormel Home, which makes sense because they are both from the same time period. They also loved seeing all the artifacts and hands-on displays, and climbing up and down the ship to every level.
We learned a lot about San Diego history and world history throughout the museum. We also enjoyed the exhibit about the fisheries for canned tuna, since Jeremy works for Bumble Bee Seafood. After it got dark, we enjoyed seeing the pirate ship, which gave some of us the heebie jeebies. Probably the best part of the museum visit was watching the amazing sunset from the deck of the Star of India.
Each of the boys got some one on two time with the grandparents. Dallin played a game of Go Fish with them and Tanner played a game of Exploding Kittens with them. The boys still talk about this special time they had with the gparents. It doesn’t take much to please them!
Jeremy had a bunch of movie passes left over from something he won, so we all went to a fancy movie theatre to see “Spies in Disguise.” We all enjoyed it, especially the boys.
Reading basketball books with Grandpa. Notice Tanner loosening his tooth!
That’s Tanner and Grandpa at the top of the hill!
Jeremy got to show the parents where he works! They really liked it!
Then we dropped our guests off at the bus station, where they took a trip up to HB to see Matt and Johanna. Dallin is frowning because he did not want to say goodbye! Thank you so much, Gramz and Grampz for spending a monumental visit with us!! This is a special Christmas that we will always remember.
