Weekly Review + Christmas 2019

How was your Christmas week? Ours was pretty magical. Jackson is at such a fun age, where he remembers our traditions from the previous years and gets so excited to celebrate – it’s beyond fun to see the holiday through his eyes and it just gives me all the warm fuzzies. Grant is obviously still too young to have any idea what’s happening, but he loves the lights, the new toys, and his brothers’ excitement!

I always love hearing about other families’ Christmas traditions – what do you do to celebrate? For us, we spend the entire day at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. We have a different theme for our meal every year, and this year was Italian. We hang out, play games, and eat pretty much all day, and then as soon as it gets dark outside (and not a moment sooner!), it’s time for presents.

It’s hilarious to watch each generation eagerly waiting for present time. When I was a kid, I remember checking outside the window every five minutes to see if the sun was going down, and constantly badgering all the adults about how much longer we had to wait. My nieces did the same thing when they were younger, and now it’s Jackson’s turn. Before we can open presents, we always read the story of Jesus’ birth from the Bible, and spend a few minutes singing Christmas carols together.

Once aaaaall of the traditions are done (and the kids are so excited they’re about to actually physically explode), it’s present time. We do stockings with all of our extended family (everyone brings a gift that’s $5 or less for each stocking), and then we exchange presents with the extended family.

The next morning, we do gifts from Santa and for each other, and we have a quiet morning playing and prepping food until the whole family arrives at our house for Christmas brunch. I always make this orange bread and it tastes exactly like Christmas to me after all these years. We spend Christmas day watching A Christmas Story (sometimes on repeat), playing games, and just enjoying our time together.

This year was a little abbreviated because my sister was sick and my dad recently had surgery and is still recovering – so everyone went home pretty early, and we had tons of time to hang out just the four of us. Jackson took pictures with his new Polaroid camera, Grant colored on his Magnadoodle and snuggled with Elmo, Corey squeezed in a nap, and I finished the book my best friend got me for Christmas.

All in all, it couldn’t have been a more lovely few days.

We’ve been lazy pretty much the rest of the week since Christmas too (because now does anyone get anything done in this week between Christmas and New Years?!), but next week once life starts to go back to normal, I am so excited to get started on a few projects around the house.

I hope your Christmas was incredible, and I hope you got in just as much relaxing as we did! Next week we’ll be doing a year in review to see what all we accomplished this year and looking forward to some of the projects we have planned in 2019…and after that, it’s GO TIME on our bedroom makeover!

ICYMI: ON THE BLOG

• I only had one post go up this week but it was a great one! It’s all about the new smart light bulbs that I’m beyond obsessed with and how we’re using them in our house. They’re a total game-changer and I’m really excited to replace every single light bulb in the house with these eventually!

deals I’m eyeing

Here are a few great deals happening right now that I wanted to share:

• You can get a free Google Nest Hub if you buy a Nest Hello Video Doorbell from Target. We have both and love them so much and this is such a fantastic deal!
• Corey got me an American Eagle gift card as part of my Christmas gifts, and they’re having SO MANY deals right now. I put in my order the day after Christmas and can’t wait to get it all in next week!
• West Elm is having their big “end of the season” sale and I’ve got my eye on a few different things. Mainly, all of the adorable holiday decor that’s 75% off!
• Gap has up to 75% off everything and I can’t stop scrolling through their site. So! Good!
• Pottery Barn is having their Buy More Save More Event on top of the end-of-season sale!

Elsewhere on the internet

• The most genius dollar store DIY ever.
• 2019’s dream home (according to Instagram). What do you think?
• The cutest NYE cupcakes.
• I got this for Christmas and it dried my hair in UNDER 10 MINUTES. My mind is blown.
• I’ve gotta tackle this organizing project before next Christmas!

Have a happy weekend, friends!