Christmas Eve

Since Alex and I have been married, we have rotated Thanksgiving and Christmas between our families. We've had wonderful holidays with them, but we decided that this year, we'd start having Christmas at home. Hamilton is getting old enough that he'll start remembering traditions and anticipating Santa, so we wanted to start the Snyder-Spjute Christmas.

Merging Christmas traditions can be a little tricky. Alex and I almost had to hire a mediator when it came to Santa Claus (wrapped/unwrapped; one big gift/many gifts). However, one holiday tradition I had totally open was Christmas Eve. My dad's birthday is that day (He likes to say he's in the middle of the Big Three: Joseph Smith, Himself, and Jesus), so we always spent the 24th celebrating him, only returning to Christmas thoughts before bedtime when we'd read the Christmas story and maybe open some jammies. I loved it, especially as it paired nicely with my mom's New Year's Eve birthday. It would be a little weird, though, if we spent the day celebrating my dad without him around, so I readily hopped on board Alex's yummy family tradition: Swedish smorgasbord.

Alex made everything: cardamon bread, kohldorma, meatballs in gravy (think superior Ikea fare), potatoes, and corn pudding. We invited my grandmother for the day, which was lots of fun and made me feel like a grown-up.

Proud chef:



Beckett trying his first pickled herring (awwww!):


"Doodie" and her best pal Hamilton:


Hamilton and Beckett playing some silly blanket game:



After stuffing ourselves with Alex's food, we headed to the LA temple to see the lights and meet up with people from our ward. I guess it's an unofficial tradition for everyone. It was lovely, but mostly extra awesome because a week's worth of rain kept us indoors for too long. Hamilton really, really needs running around time. We took advantage. Probably not too reverent, but I think totally acceptable.




Ok, things did get a bit out of hand when Hamilton and Kieran combined forces....


but we managed to get a decent picture with an appropriate background for the season.