Christmas in Boston

Yes, I'm finally getting around to blogging about Christmas!!

This year we stayed home in Boston for Christmas. It was our first Christmas away from our families back home, but we decided to save a little money and a little travel stress by going home after the holidays, and we wanted to start our own traditions with Eden... so we did.

Christmas Eve was relaxing. We went to some friends' house, had dinner, sang Christmas carols and read the Christmas story from Luke. There were six kids, including Eden, and a puppy (lil miss Bella). Everyone but the two youngest kids and Bella took a turn reading, and it was beautiful!


When we got home we began the first Thomason Tradition: opening one present. Surprise! Bryan and Eden both got footie pajamas!! They changed into their new pj's and posed for a picture, and then we all headed off to bed (nice hair, Bryan!).


Christmas morning we slept in (Eden got up at 7, ate, and went back to sleep with us until 9! Yay!!) and then got up to open our presents. We had received FOUR packages on Christmas Eve (and at least two before that - it's now been too long and I forget) so there was plenty to open!


Eden got a couple of new toys, and Nino got some new toys, too. Eden liked Nino's toys almost as much as she liked her own, but she did get a kick out of the ring stacker:


We relaxed and played for a while, and then Bryan went to get some friends of ours who also were away from family for the holidays (they're from South Africa). I made sugar cookies (which I'd intended to do on Christmas Eve but never got around to) and we made a huge, Thanksgiving-like feast of ham, turkey, salad, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese. It was awesome but it was a LOT of food. I did glaze my first ham, and I think it turned out pretty well. I basically just loaded it with honey and brown sugar. How could that go wrong? :)

We spent the whole day hanging out, playing J&K's Wii (they were in Texas so we borrowed it), teaching Phumlani and Ellen to play Canasta (which was fun but we miss our regular Canasta partners!) and enjoying friends.

All in all it was a really nice and relaxing Christmas. I think we'll do something very similar next year. :) Yay!