christmas time

We had such a great Christmas this year! Ryan had to work half day of Christmas Eve, and I had school half day as well, so we left for Ogden at about 3. When we got there, we stopped to see my sisters new house she just closed on, it's so cute! Afterwards, we headed up to my parents house and had our annual Christmas Eve party there.

We had so much food! My mom made a delicious ham, and we had so many other things, like cheese balls, dips, veggie trays...and my favorite of all...my grandma's delicious homemade wassil! yummy! We had the ball of fun, a tradition my grandparents have done since before I was born. They wrap up individual presents and write our names on the outside of them, and then tape it to a huge strip of butcher paper and then roll it up into a ball, then we all sit in a circle and Grandpa sits in the middle and slowly unrolls the ball and hands out the gifts.

It's such a fun tradition and I look forward to it every year! Then we played the left-right game, which involves envelopes being passed left and right as my grandma reads a story that she writes every year about the family, then like any other left-right game, someone has money in one of the envelopes! After everyone left, my sisters and parents and us played games and then we finally made it to bed around 1:00.

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast with my parents, turned on ELF and Ryan and I opened our gifts to each other:

We both surprised each other with new jackets, it's funny cause both of us had picked them out and fallen in love with them, but both of them were WAY too big (online shopping with only size L and XL left) so neither of expected to get either jacket. But we both thought we'd be clever and buy the jacket, and have it shipped to my mom's house to have her alter it before Christmas, haha! so we both got the jackets we wanted and in the size we wanted thanks to the help from my mom!

We both spoiled each other so much more than we should have, we mostly got clothes for each other along with a couple other little things. However, our parents really spoiled us! We got a 6 man tent, a camping bench with cooler and umbrella, a sewing machine, a 10 time punch pass to Logan River Golf, boots, more and more clothes....the list is forever long, but we are oh so grateful!

This is what Ryan likes to call our "booty" from each other (I don't know when he started speaking pirate!)

After we left my parents house around 1:00, we headed up the the Doyle house and had Christmas with them. Grandma and Grandpa Doyle were there all day and it was fun to see them and talk with them again. Norm and Kim made a DELICIOUS turkey dinner, complete with all the dressing, cranberry sauce and much, much more! We opened presents after dinner with everyone and then watched some movies and had yummy pies :)

As you can tell, Christmas was really just so much fun this year, we had such an amazing time with all our friends and family. It's truly what the season is about, just being with loved ones and celebrating the birth of Christ our Savior!

Hope you all had a merry one too!