One of my most favorite activities of the year is our Family Nativity Party. We invite some of our closest friends over for dinner and have all the kids dress up to act out the Nativity Story. Since our familes have all grown since our last Nativity Party 2 years ago, we began our evening this year with 10 Adults & 27 kids ! It was a tight squeeze in our little home, but that did not decrease the fun we had!

One of my really good friends made the comment to me recently that taking pictures with 5 kids is about impossible. I would have to agree! We tried taking pictures of the kids for a calendar for my dad, and every one has at least one person looking away, with eyes closed, hiding behind someone else, just plain silly, or the picture blurs!

After our whole house came down with the sick bug, we were running out of time to do our Christmas activities. No matter what, though, we did not want to miss Bethlehem Revisited in Waxahachie. Our family loves going! It helps all of us to remember the true meaning of Christmas amidst all the holiday hustle and bustle. We missed the first week, but crammed it in on a crazy Saturday night.

I have to say, it might not have been worth it this year. It was very crowded! People were very pushy and rude. I even had one guy ram into my back. When I turned around to see who had shoved me, he quickly apologized, realizing I was holding my infant son inside my coat, to try and keep him warm, but also to be able to see the sites on his very first Christmas. He said, "I didn't realize you had a baby." Well, does it matter!?! Shoving someone in the back is just plain rude, whether they have a baby or not! One guy (meaning past his 40's) cut in front of Natalie, who was waiting in line at the unleavened bread house for about 15mins at this point, and practically stepped on top of her doing so. We were so mad that we left after that! People were definitely not behaving Christ-like, and it was very hard to feel the Spirit of Christmas in that environment. We will be trying a new nativity next year, and if we do go back to Waxahachie, it will be on a Sunday night, in hopes that less people will be there.

We were able to see David Archuletta.

Each year, when Thanksgiving ends, our family goes into "hyper-drive" trying to prioritize what we want to do at Christmas time, and each year, our plans never turn out as planned. This year is following the trend. We usually go cut down our tree the weekend following Thanksgiving, but we were very busy, then found out that tree farm is closed this year. We decided to go with Home Depot instead. (Too little time and Too much effort to find another location.) We wanted to focus on family activities this year, but we have already had to adjust that too. We planned to go to the Neiman's Christmas Parade as a family, but Nate woke up really sick, so we had to leave him behind. It was great, but still disappointing to be missing a kid. Hopefully this is not the start of a very "ill" holiday. The holiday season is suppose to be enjoyable, not stressful!