New Traditions

So our Christmas looked a whole lot different this year...1), we were away from family for the first time since we've been married, 2) it's the middle of summer down here so it was a HOT Christmas, and 3) Brazilian traditions look a lot different than those in the states.  For example, the big Christmas meal is eaten at midnight on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning.  Lots of family and friends gather together for this meal and then will often open presents afterward (which they don't receive nearly as many of) until the wee hours of the morning.  Then, the actual day of Christmas is pretty quiet/sleepy with hardly anything going on.

Well, with a 2.5 year old, we didn't think we were quite ready to adopt this midnight meal custom so we decided to make some traditions of our own.  Back in Florida, our Christmas routine usually looked like this: Christmas Eve at Amber's grandparents' house with extended family, eating pizza and exchanging gifts.  Christmas day at Nick's mom's house with stockings, presents, and a big dinner. The day after Christmas we spent at Amber's parents' house treating it like Christmas morning with pancakes, stockings, and presents.  This year, our routine looked like this:

Christmas Eve - Amber cooked all day for a big Christmas Eve dinner with just the three of us (pot roast and veggies, mashed potatoes, pineapple souffle, and crescent rolls - all from scratch of course).  We also had lots of Christmas cookies to snack on for dessert :)  After dinner and bath time, Carter put on his Christmas jammies and got to open one present...a new Christmas movie which we all watched together in mom and dad's bed.  I can't wait to continue this tradition in the years to come :)

Christmas Day - We started the day with homemade cinnamon rolls and the rest of our Christmas movie (we didn't make it all the way through the night before...).  Then we opened stockings and presents.  Carter is at SUCH a fun age for all of this and really got into opening each one of his (and our) packages and wanted to play with each item immediately.  There was no rush, so we let him and our Christmas morning lasted until 1pm!  It was such a fun, lazy, happy Christmas morning :)  During Carter's afternoon nap, Nick and I enjoyed one last Christmas movie for the season, and then we had our friend Pedro over for Christmas dinner (leftovers from the night before).  That's the great thing about cooking on Christmas Eve - you don't have anything you have to do on Christmas day!

Though it was hard to be away from family and Christmas traditions and activities in the states, we really did have a wonderful holiday here in Brazil.  And of course, it's not about the decorations, the parties, and the traditions, but about celebrating the wonderful news the God sent his son to earth to live and die for us.  This year I've really been hit with the fact that not only did God send Christ to this world, but he sent him knowing that one day he would die.  What great love - I can't even fathom!