Hayes’s First Christmas

I have never been more excited about Christmas than I was this year. It was our very first Christmas as a family of 3 and I could NOT wait to start our own little family traditions! I’m not going to lie though, I totally stressed myself out trying do all.of.the.things and come up with the most perfect traditions and finding the cutest most creative way to document them all…which is honestly ridiculous because Hayes is litarally 10 months old and won’t remember any of this and doesn’t even understand what’s going on…BUT I just wanted it to be perfect, which is understandable right?! Well, the good news is, it was perfect. And it was perfect in our own special way. I don’t think we did ONE of the traditions that I had in my head that I wanted to do, but WHO CARES.
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Kyle has a really big family so we typically spend a few days with his side. We spent the 22nd and 23rd over at his Nanas with the whole crew and it was pure chaos but SO much fun! All of his cousins were in town and we’re all SO close so it’s just a ton of fun every time we get together.

The weather was so beautiful the days we were over there so we spent the majority of our time outside playing games and wearing the kiddos out and did a WHOLE lot of eating. So far Hayes is the ONLY boy on both sides…he has two girls cousins and will be getting two more girl cousins in the Spring!! Hoping and praying someone (or we) have a boy soon so he has a buddy to play with. Kyle’s family is mainly boys so it looks like the roles are reversing, funny how it always seems to do that!!

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So I fully intended on our Christmas Eve being filled with decorating Christmas cookies, driving around looking at Christmas lights, eating a special dinner together, and just doing all of the picture perfect things that families do on Christmas Eve. Well, none of those things happened…The majority of my Christmas Eve was spent running around Target by myself in a panic searching for last minute gifts (typical Monica), getting home to realize we have no food to eat, sending Kyle off to get fast food and him calling me 3 different times to tell me each place was closed. We ended up eating grilled cheese sandwiches and sipped on some eggnog, which was honestly phenomenal, so looks like grilled cheeses and eggnog just may be our new Christmas Eve family tradition!
We also let Hayes drive to his Uncle Bryan & Aunt Skyes house on Christmas Eve…10 months old and already behind the wheel, Lord help us!

After we put Hayes down Kyle and I got to play “Santa” together for the first time and it was honestly THE BEST. I was so excited to set out all of Hayes’s new toys. When I was little we’d always wake up on Christmas morning and have some presents wrapped underneath the tree and those were from my parents and then the ones Santa brought would just be sitting out and ready to play with (because Santa is always in a hurry, duh)

Christmas morning was spent playing with all of his new toys!

Then we got ready and headed over to my parents house to celebrate with my side of the fam! Which is WAYYY smaller and more chill than Kyle’s side haha It’s usually just my parents, my sister and brother in law and us 3!

It was a perfect day of opening presents, eating a TON of food, and relaxing together. We were desperate for a chill day after all of the Holiday festivities all week long.

Hayes’s first Christmas was definitely a success. Cannot wait for next year when he can really understand more and enjoy it!! So far he has been LOVINGGGG all of the gifts he got and plays with them every single day!