And Then It Was Christmas

After a 9 miler on Friday morning we kicked off Christmas weekend with service at The Rock

When it says there will be snow, there will be snow. We had a FREEZE warning in SD on Friday night. Yes, you read that right. It was 68 in the afternoon, and 28 on Friday night. 28 at the beach.

OK, it didn’t actually snow snow. But there was snow. 

And it wasn’t only outside, it snowed during service too!

Seriously, my church did it right this year. All of the kids were allowed in the sanctuary so we got to have a family service. You could hear giggles and crying and everything you should when kids are around. It was absolutely beautiful.

Saturday morning I had every intention of busting out my 15 miler. I woke up and was plain exhausted. I decided not to run and just enjoy the day with my family. So worth it. I can run any old day, time with my kids while they are small is priceless.

We packed up and headed 45 min north to my parentals house. My mom started the luminary tradition in her neighborhood so while the boys prepped food (yes you read that right) the ladies got all of the luminaries put together and lined up along the neighborhood.

We hopped in the back of my brother’s truck and headed to the top of Lookout to get the bags lined up. So pretty at the top of the hill

We figured since it was so serene it was the perfect opportunity for a family self portrait

Me. my mom and my sister. No I am not adopted. I just ended up being the light-haired Italian of the family. I look my Dad. We’re the good looking ones, just ask him 🙂 (Kidding Mom…and Pooks…and Joe)

It took our crew about 90 minutes to get them all out and then we headed home. We wanted to get dinner ready before the lighting at 6. It was hard to get a good photo of how pretty it looked all lit up. But here is an idea of what it looked like

After it was all said and done we got to grubbin. You may (or may not) know that many Italian family’s eat fish for dinner on Christmas Eve. Some do the Feast of 7 fishes- we do our own modern SoCal version known as make your own sushi. Fish is fish people. This is one of my favorite family traditions!

I don’t mean to brag but we don’t mess around. My Mom has SKILLZ

I think we went through 10 pounds of fish. Yes, we were proud of that. 

After all the grub it was time for another tradition. Opening Christmas jammies! We have done this since I was a kid and I love it. My favorite part is when we try to get all of the kids to take a “good” picture. HA!

No you are not getting a picture of me in my jammies. Not right now anyway.

After all of the festivities we headed home. It’s the one night of the year that we get ASKED to hurry up and get back to the house so that we didn’t miss the jolly old fellow

And then the night was over and it was time to celebrate.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)