We truly enjoy the traditions of the season and we have lots of them. We decorate the house, do a gingerbread house competition, go to the ornament store, bake cookies, and have a Christmas movie night at church. We also had the kids’ school semi-formal and got to go to Ukiah to celebrate Hunter’s birthday with him.

Decorating for Christmas!

Here are just a few pictures.

Gingerbread House Building Competition!

The kids always pair/group up. They had lots of fun this year doing it.

Adi, Azri, and Abel’s Creation: (Winners by a small margin)

Ama and Ava’s Creation:

Ornament Store and Lunch in Petaluma

We often go to Marissa’s Fantasia with Tiff and sometimes Nate, but this year just us. We also often get Old Chicago Pizza, but this year we went to McNears. No pictures of the ornament store. Oops.

Baking Cookies!

Baking cookies is one of my favorite traditions! We always baked growing up, so we continue the tradition. We always make shortbread and frosted sugar cookie cutouts, which my mom (Robin) always made with her grandmother (“Grammie”/Alice “Louise”). Adeliza’s favorite are gingerbread, using Aunt Debbie’s recipe, so she made those with Abel. We also make candy cane cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and sometimes a variety of other cookies. I made Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies this year. They were delicious! Ama’s favorite addition we added in recent years are Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.

This year we also sold cookies as a fundraiser for our Washington DC/Philadelphia trip in February, so we didn’t have as many for Christmas parties/gatherings.

SPCF Women’s Christmas Party

The four of us girls went to the church women’s Christmas party. It was pretty fun. The highlight was Adeliza, Zion, Abby, and Stellar singing two songs for us.

Semi-formal

The older four had their school semi-formal. They got dressed up and saw a play called “All is Calm” about the Christmas truce during WWI.

While they were at the play, I had the privilege of celebrating a friend’s birthday at a tea room in Sebastopol with her mom and sister (also my friends).

Hunter’s Birthday

Wrapping presents with some help.

The Living Nativity and Movie Night at church.

Watching The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie was fun. I loved the message and it was just as good as the book!

We had a full season, and I was so thankful for the meaningful elements that pointed to the reason we celebrate Christmas – Jesus. Spending time with family and friends was a wonderful gift as well. I feel fully blessed.