Christmas Break Part One

This year over Christmas break, we took the whole 2 weeks off from work and spent most of the time away from home.  It was awesome!  Such a needed break.  But before we left we had to make gingerbread houses (and trains, in Weston's case).  I had the best intentions this year of making the gingerbread myself, but in the end, I opted for the more costly but infinitely easier route. 

Then, on to Grandma and Grandpa Ferguson's.  We don't often get to spend nearly as much time there as we'd like to and Grandma and Grandpa's, so this was so great not to have to hurry back home for work.

My mom put together a Christmas Eve program and all the kids did a nativity. Check out those costumes!  My mom's awesome neighbor has a huge rack of costumes plus a manger complete with hay. 

Somehow (probably some not so subtle hints) Ben talked Grandma into giving him her nutcracker.  He's had it standing on the same place on his shelf since we came home until the other night when he decided that it looked "freaky" during the night.  So now he has to move it out of the room at night.

We didn't even go to get our own tree this year since we were going to be gone for the holidays, so the kids were really looking forward to decorating at Grandma's.  It was fun.  She brought out all the old ornaments from when we were kids. That was quite a trip down memory lane.

Christmas morning.  This year we gave the kids the option of getting presents or going on a trip.  They picked a trip to California.  Santa still brought a stocking and even surprised the whole family with a few extra gifts.  The only gift they got from us, were some bags I sewed (YES I SEWED, with some help from a friend) full of snacks, activities and games for our drive to California.  I also sewed some smaller bags with $20 in quarters.  The plan was for them to lose quarters if they fight on our trip otherwise they could spend the money in California.  A little trick my mom used on us as kids that apparently worked great.  Only back then she used dimes, which would have bought NOTHING at Disneyland.  

It was a wonderful 5 days with the family and we were sad to say goodbye, but off to home with one day to prepare for our California trip.