When I wrote about holiday traditions, I completely forgot to write about the Christmas Eve family game! We've been doing it since we had Alex (and I think it's something John's family did when they were younger). Last year John went an extra step and had an elf deliver it to our door on Christmas eve (Well, not an actual elf, there was a mysterious knock at the door and when we went to answer it no one was there, but there was a gift on our porch). This year, as we were just hanging out together on Christmas eve, Max noticed something in the fireplace. "Are you going to burn that present?" He asked John. An elf had dropped the gift down the chimney!
The gift turned out to be Pop The Pig, the very game the boys had been BEGGING to get for weeks. Sadly, Max's balloon phobia prevented anyone from really enjoying the game as he screamed THE WHOLE TIME we tried to play, out of fear that the pig's belly would actually pop. Even after several demonstrations at how the belly doesn't really pop or explode, it just gets bigger and his hands swing out, no, the act of pumping up the belly was just too much for poor Maxie, and despite stuffing cottonballs in his ears, he couldn't handle it.
We left cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer
Our Christmas was very nice, even though we didn't have much of a budget, as usual all of our money went to make sure the boys had gifts, we've been doing this since we've had kids long before we were broke because that's how it should be I think. I wouldn't want any money going toward a gift for me when it could and should go toward something for the boys.
Santa filled the stockings and left a couple of presents and we gave the boys Leapsters and a couple of games to share.
Santa left these, gifts from mom and dad not shown
The boys are at the perfect age, they didn't notice that the pile was smaller this year. They didn't complain about not getting expensive gifts. They were THRILLED with every single thing they got. In fact, I feel like this amount of gifts was just about perfect because there were enough to be excited about but not so many that they get overwhelmed. Even if our finances improve in the future, I think this might be how we do it moving forward.
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