A VERY Merry Christmas

Monday, January 4, 2016
Oh, hey old friends!
I've taken a much needed break from my blogging life while spending time with friends and family in our home town of San Diego.
It was perfect in every way.
But, I'm also so entirely happy to be back at it!
I have quite a bit of catching up to do... like seriously it's overwhelming.
So I'm going to delay most of it a little longer and start with a recap of Christmas :)




As mentioned above, we spent our Christmas is San Diego.
We stayed with Hunter's family, but lucky for us, my parents literally live 5 minutes away so we saw them just as much.
All of Hunter's family came into town and all of mine plus my grandparents!
It made for a very busy, yet also very relaxing 2 weeks. 

We went on several shopping trips, went out to eat a bunch, opened lots of presents, played a whole lot of games, and saw quite a few movies.
But the best part, was just being with family.

Christmas Eve is when we celebrate Christmas as a family with Hunter's side and it never disappoints. This year however, was exceptionally fun!
We played game after game and ate the most delicious dinner.
I'm so lucky to have married into such a fun, crazy, and huge family that really goes all out for Christmas.
We started with a yummy omelette breakfast, then played nertz, followed by a gingerbread house competition, the newlywed game, boys vs girls table decorating (the girls definitely won, but their tree napkins were pretty snazzy!), dinner, a reenactment of the nativity (so special), and of course our Secret Santa gift exchange!
Hunter and I won the newlywed game and got 2nd place in the gingerbread competition!
We seriously had a blast.

The Boys table. Not bad, but a whole lot going on for the center piece, ha!




This is the girls table! Nothing was planned it was all spur of the monent
Boys fancy Napkins
Girls Fancy Menus

We then spent Christmas day at my parents house where Oaklyn got completely spoiled on her first Christmas!
She got a crazy amount of presents from all of us and we loved watching her experience opening her gifts for the first time!
Our little family wore our matching Santa jammies (a new family tradition) as we opened presents and at my mom's famous Christmas morning casserole. 
The rest of the day was really relaxed as we cooked, talked, ate, and watched Oaklyn be the cutest little baby.







We really had the best time with our families making it SO hard to leave. 
This Christmas season I spent a whole lot of time reflecting on Mary, Christ's mother.
Can you imagine being her?
Giving birth to the Savior of the world?
What a special role she played in Jesus' life.
This amazing song by Pentatonix is the reason I though about her so much, I hope to be as selfless of a mother as her.

How was your Christmas this year?

All my love,
Aleigh Joy

Ps. I got Hunter a trip to the shooting range this year for Christmas. He seriously won't stop talking about it! I'd say it was the perfect gift ;)





2 comments

  1. Beautiful pictures. Sounds like it was a great trip, we loved seeing you. Kisses to Oaks

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