Merry Christmas!

Since James has started worked at Highland, he has always had a good Christmas break, so this year he took his turn of working during the holiday.  We enjoyed Christmas with our little family here in Dallas!

Leading up to Christmas, we went "sledding" around the house, decorated sugar cookies at the park,

 dressed up Elvis as a candy cane, decorated a gingerbread house,

won wine from a Christmas sweater competition at work (thanks, Clark),

made homemade marshmallows,

 and talked a lot about the true meaning of Christmas.  We loved the new Bible videos online highlighting the Nativity.

We also went to our church's Christmas party, and guess who showed up?  The most real looking Santa I've ever seen... 

 I was surprised the kids weren't scared of him!  Grayson acted like he'd stay there all night, cuddled on his lap.

On Christmas Eve, we put on our jammies and sipped hot chocolate with our yummy marshmallows.

 Hazel decided to sleep by the tree so she could see Santa, but we eventually made her move to her bed.  

At some point, Santa came and filled our stockings.

Grayson got some baby instruments and Hazel got an easy bake oven.  Do you spy some tiny chocolate chip cookies?

 I must've been a good girl.  Santa was very generous...

It was nice to see family on Christmas day as well!  We love going over to see Grandma and Grandpa Palmer as well as James's sister Tami and family.

And then sometime a few days later, Santa remembered a gift he forgot to put under the tree... Hazel didn't seem to mind!

Of course, our greatest Christmas gift is the life of our Savior Jesus Christ.  Merry Christmas indeed!