CONNELL TALES: Christmas

Christmas this year was a blast! We started off the celebration with family the Saturday before Christmas (Above: Hannah, Brinley, and Mamaw).

When Chris and I got married, the thought of planning for the holidays was a little intimidating. We now had to add more family to our already pretty full days. Not to mention, we've both got stellar families and wanted to soak up every minute with each of them.

Two Christmas' later, it's turned out to not be that big of a deal. We talk about it in advance and roll with the changes. Christmas Eve is spent with in M'town with my family and Christmas Day is with my inherited fam. Lots of uninterrupted time to be together.

And lots of time to eat.

And celebrate...

Case in point. Christmas Eve in M'town at my parents' home. My mother's side of the family gets together for lunch and we all give lots of attention to the babies of the family.

It's a little chaotic, but SUPER fun!

J. (5 years old), Addalee (2 years old), and River (just about 1!)

They are modeling one of this year's greatest toys - Bilibo - that Aunt Sonya got for them.

Beth is bringing in even more toys from the garage, where Nana and Dee hid them.

Hello, little Miss Couldn't Be CUTER!

The happy Cole family.

This was Riv's first Christmas!!

This photo of J. may be my favorite from that day...

Johnny took him away from his new train for about 4 seconds to take this photo. It was obviously painful for the little man. Addalee just enjoyed her cookie.

{J., Johnny, Jenny, and Addalee - Jen is pregnant with baby girl Cole!}

Our family exchange of presents...

Highlights:

1. Ben wrapped his presents in newspaper. He started out the gift giving with giving us a lighter for our firepit and Beth and Will a paintbrush to paint their new home with. Neither of those were wrapped though. He just took a piece of paper and taped it (with masking tape) to the object of choice.

2. We surprised Beth and Will with a firepit. (Mom and Dad got us one, which we knew of, and Beth thought she was in on a surprise for us... Little did she know there was one for her!)

3. Beth and I surprised Mom and Dad with a wedding album from each of our weddings.

4. Beth has camera radar. I don't think I had a single picture from this day of her not looking at the camera.

5. We got a lot of awesome and thoughtful gifts!

After this, we loaded up our stuff and headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. It was packed, but we squeezed in and sang all of those wonderful Christmas songs about the Savior together.

Being with family at church to celebrate Christmas is one of my favorite traditions. It was definitely special.

After kissing my family goodbye, Chris and I set out on the road for Birmingham so we could spend Christmas Day with his family.

Normally, the family in Birmingham come up to Tennessee for Christmas. Unfortunately, there were other family matters that kept them in B'ham. They couldn't come to us, so we were going to them. We didn't want to miss seeing them for the holiday!

We arrived late Christmas Eve night and were there on Christmas morning opening presents with the family:

We did the big Christmas exchange with his family that morning.

Highlights:

1. Giving T. and Natalie the Disney vacation album we made for them.

2. Opening each present one by one so we got to watch everyone and see what they got. I loved this! (It was a free-for-all at my family's so I may have to implement this next year... It does take a little more time, so my patient family may not be able to do it.) We loved watching everyone's reactions to the gifts!

3. Chris' parents got us a treadmill for Christmas. Obviously that can't be wrapped (nor hauled to Birmingham), so T. wrote down that we were getting a treadmill on a piece of paper and wrapped it up! We should have known something was up with the gift that was super light.

4. We got a lot of awesome and thoughtful gifts!

Christmas Day lunch with the rest of the family was at Rick and Suzanne's.

Katie holding baby Charley!

Charley, the first baby on this side of the family, is cute as a button! Such big eyes and loves giving hugs. We definitely don't mind giving hugs right on back his way...