Christmas 2020

This week we tried to find the convergence of Jupiter and Saturn, but realized the next day that what we actually spotted was Mars. Oh well; it was still fun looking for it.  

On Tuesday we received notification that school was going to be cancelled for Wednesday due to a blizzard warning. Brynn was already going to be at home that day, but Clara was to be in school for her last day before the holiday break. So, she was pretty excited for an opportune snow day.

I wasn't about to miss my morning group dance exercise class on Wednesday morning and had talked Brynn into joining me with the promise of homemade coffee toffee ice cream! She made it up in time to go and we both donned our festive wear.

The weather was already pretty nasty at 5:30 in the morning, but not impossible. So, after class was done we ventured downtown so that I could pick up some hot cocoa bombs I ordered from a local baker who is originally from Fessenden.

Brynn decided she was starving for breakfast so I stopped at the McDonald's drive-thru on our way back home. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to fall back asleep once we got back home. So, I think it was a pretty long day for her.

Clara was aghast that the storm had strewn about some of the things we have under our deck. So she ventured out to retrieve them. Brynn and I were concerned that she was going to blow away out there, but thankfully she made it back inside. 

The girls got to baking the cake that we got from Sunday school at church. I had always wanted to do a birthday cake for Jesus, but it had never really worked out before, I guess.

During dinner on Wednesday we were all trying to come up with a Christmas movie that we could watch together, and after much discussion, we agreed upon Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph. 

Some of us from our BodyPump exercise class dressed up on Thursday morning...as you can see, some more than others. I really debated including this pic on here, since this is a family blog and all! ;-)

This year was our year to celebrate Christmas with Dana's side. In light of COVID, we decided to spend Christmas eve at home and go to Grandpa and Grandma Froemming's Christmas Day for a bit.

So, Christmas eve we had planned to hang out at home, playing games and maybe watch another Christmas movie and the girls were planning on decorating the cake they had made.

Brynn found this Santa tracker app that she downloaded onto her phone.

I got such a kick out of it...it reported how many cookies Santa had eaten, how many 'ho, ho, ho's' he had said, how many times he had checked his list twice...

and, of course, where he was in the world! According to Brynn's calculations, he was due to arrive in Fargo at 11:00 pm. He was in China at this time that we were checking.

Playing Brynn's Pictionary Air game.

We put together an appetizer snack type lunch and set it up downstairs, much to the girls' delight and watched some Food Network while we munched.

We had to submit our reservation for church on Christmas Eve, so we had opted for the 4:00 pm service. We were able to snap a quick photo before we headed out. I didn't realize how much I have been shrinking height-wise. Very strange.

We had a yummy ham dinner after we got home from church.

Brynn had downloaded another app that determined if you were on Santa's nice or naughty list. Clara made it onto the nice list. I was also on the nice list, and poor Dad somehow ended up on the naughty list.

On to gift opening!

One of Brynn's gifts to Clara...

Clara lamenting that she had forgotten to give Dad a gift from her.

Brynn made a slime kit for Clara. I was not a huge fan as it contains two of my most loathed items: glitter and slime itself. However, I love the thought that Brynn put into making this gift especially for Clara, knowing how much she would love it.

We got the girls their own iPads for Christmas (and also as birthday gifts). Brynn realized right away what it was, but you can kind of see the progression of concern on Clara's face in the pictures as it took her a bit longer to catch up to what was in the boxes. 

Brynn keeled over from excitement. Clara's still trying to figure out what it is.

Me with my haul. Clara got me a gift certificate to my fav place to get shakes, Challenge Nutrition, Brynn got me earrings, and Dana got me an Apple watch and a Google Home. He always gets me things I never knew that I wanted, but end up loving. 

Between my Google Home and the girls' iPads, Dana was on full time tech support getting everything set up.

This looks like a heap of something on a plate, but I had made a cheesecake for our dessert. We decided to wait and have dessert after we opened gifts.

The girls made cake pops with the leftover cake scraps they had. They kind of look like meatballs because of the red frosting. hehe.

Happy birthday to Jesus!

Clara reading herself a Christmas bedtime story.

Cookies all ready for Santa.

Right when Clara was ready to get into bed, she remembered that she had forgotten to give us the gift she made for us in school. If you've seen my sister's blog, it's the same idea as Oliver made...a decorative snowman post that is the same height as Clara.

Here came the waterworks. Uff.

Clara was concerned how Santa would enter our house when we don't have a chimney for him to get down. I told her we'd leave the front door unlocked so that he could easily get in. Dana installed a Nest Ring which is essentially one of those doorbell cameras. Anytime it senses movement, it snaps a photo. So, I had also told Clara that we would watch the Nest notifications to see if it would catch Santa coming or going. And, sure enough! It was even right at 11:00 when Brynn's app predicted he'd show up. Turns out Santa is quite punctual.

I told Clara once she woke in the morning that she could wake the rest of us up to open Santa gifts.

It was around 7:15 when she came and told me Santa had come; then off she went to rouse Brynn.

So much excitement.

Santa brought Brynn  a hamster ornament. 

And a little camera for Clara.

Clara's ornament this year was a space ornament.

We got out the Rhodes rolls again, just like we had done the turkey rolls at Thanksgiving and bunnies at Easter. We were going for reindeer rolls. Brynn had the idea of pretzel sticks for the antlers. 

Snapping a pic with Brynn's iPad.

After some lounging around, we made brunch before heading to Grandpa and Grandma's.

We patched auntie in for gift opening. The girls were telling her what they had gotten for Christmas so far.

Clara's fav: Tootsie Rolls!

Thanks for having us and for the gifts, Grandpa and Grandma!

We got home around 5:30 and it was a pretty nice night out, so the girls asked Dad if he would pull them on the sled behind the four-wheeler. These pictures are really bad; they were going so fast! Ha.

It was certainly a different Christmas than we've ever had since we were mostly at home. But, at least for this year, it seemed to work out okay and for the first time, we were able to wake up at home Christmas morning. We tried to find the silver lining in being home more than we typically would at Christmastime. It still didn't change the meaning of Christmas and we're thankful it worked out for us to spend part of Christmas Day with Dana's parents.

We're planning to celebrate Christmas with my side at my parents' lake on New Year's Day.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Jesus.