Shame On Me

So I've been really bad at blogging lately; shame on me. It seems that the only time I have for it lately is after putting Mallory down at night or super early in the morning before she wakes up, but I'm usually too tired to do so. I'm behind on a post for Christmas and New Year's; not a great way to start the new year, late. So I'm going to summarize a bit.

Christmas Eve we went over to Jamie's to have Christmas with the Jenkins clan because not everyone was going to be able to make Christmas day. We had the traditional meal of Chinese food for dinner making it easy for everyone so there wasn't a bunch of cooking and clean up to deal with. Afterward Kaylee reminded us that it was time to open gifts which were primarily centered around her and Mallory. We did a secret Santa gift among the siblings for the first time this year which was a lot of fun and something I hope to continue each year.

Christmas was at our house again this year but I didn't go to the extreme that I did last year. I kept it very simple with a crockpot beef stew. My parents came down from Chico to join Jody and I, Steven and Jamie, and Ted and Kim. We altered the white elephant gift exchange this year by making the gifts ones that people would want which worked out better because then we actually had stealing going on. I ended up getting the gift that I put in - Cranium - but I was secretly hoping that would happen. Mallory was super spoiled with lots of people to hold her and of course she was soaking it all up.

New Year's Eve we hosted some family and friends. If we're going to be up really late then it's easier to have things at our house so we have access to all of Mallory's stuff. We put her down a little after 9 pm and then played Taboo, Rockband, and Apples to Apples. At midnight we went outside and let off the poppers and then called it a night. It was really low key but still a lot of fun.

Another shame on me as I didn't take very many pictures. The ones I have are only from Christmas Eve and Christmas day, and I forgot to get a group shot at that. I need to get better at taking more pictures, maybe a resolution for this year. Overall, the holidays turned out to be very nice and exactly what I was hoping for. Though I'm sad to see Christmas go I'm really, really looking forward to next year when Mallory is older and able to get more excited over the festivities.