Christmas

Third married Christmas. 

First Christmas just the two of us (well, 3 including Sydney). 

On Christmas morning, we were blessed to open many thoughtful gifts. We had packages from our families and a few gifts for each other. Sydney, of course, had some things to open as well. And even without her gifts, she would have been perfectly content playing with the ribbons, bows, and paper from our gifts. 

After we opened presents and stockings (and cleaned up Sydney's wrapping paper mess), Dan made a delicious (and our third annual) Christmas morning brunch. I'm thankful I have a husband who loves to cook!

Apparently, almost everyone in Hawaii goes to the beach for Christmas, and we thought about it, but it was kind of a gloomy day.

So after brunch, we FaceTimed with almost everyone in our family and finished preparing the house for dinner. Normally, we just have the round table in our dining space (seats 4), but since we invited more than two people over, we brought in additional tables (the bistro table, which has been stored in our garage all year, and our outside patio table). It was crammed, but cozy. 

Then, that evening, we enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner with friends at our house. Dan had invited some of the guys he works with - single guys and guys he knew that weren't going to be celebrating with family. A few close friends stopped by, too. The DiBlasi sauce was a hit! Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the people, though.

Overall, it was a relaxing and special day, with old and new traditions. Merry Christmas!

Keep Smiling...