Express Christmas

This year we had a ton of fun Christmas events! We were planning on spending actual Christmas in UTAH. So we wanted to do something special with our family here. After being avid watchers of the TV show Modern Family, what better way to celebrate Christmas then by having Express Christmas. In the show the families are all together on Dec 16 but realize they won’t all spend Christmas day together, so they come up with EXPRESS
CHRISTMAS. (It was Phil’s idea).

So we had our first Express Christmas of the season! We hosted the event in our home. We had yummy dinner, prepared by mom and I and dessert by my little sister Kathy. After dinner we watched a Christ video to invite the spirit to our night. We always like to remember why we truly celebrate Christmas.

Later in the night we started to decorate our gingerbread people. It was fun and super funny seeing my family try to get all creative. Every gingerbread person was unique! They decorated some funny characters. Plus they were also very yummy!

At the end of our night we exchanged our gifts. There is a tradition that I have made. I feel like sometimes the gifts my family receives are not “surprises” because they all have Christmas list and I always try to get the gift they want the most! So sometimes I see something they might like but it wasn’t on the list. For example Kathy bakes a lot but doesn’t have her own cute apron. This year I saw some really cute aprons in Anthropologie and decided that would be her extra gift. The fun thing about this gift besides that it is a complete surprise, its from Louie! (Our
doggie). So every year Louie gets my family a cute surprise gift! The
outcome is priceless! They are always super surprised and in love with their gift. Usually Louie does not give me a gift since I am the one that buys them. But this year Louie gave me a gift!

Even though it was not on actual Christmas day, we felt like it was our own special Christmas! We enjoyed that night so much. I love my family!

*also this is our 2012 Christmas card!