christmas eve and christmas day. MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC

2015 christmas eve and day were pure magic.
i spent the day running around like a mad woman finishing shopping, making multiple trips to the grocery store, making funeral potatoes (see; utah mormon recipes) to take to dinner, wrapping the last few presents, and visiting schmidt's pastry cottage for their amazing cinnamon rolls to take to our secret santa family.

below are all the presents purchased by my charles family that travis helped me wrap for our secret santa family. the family is one that i work with at school; two of the boys are my kiddos at the junior high and i love them dearly! it was definitely a lot of work to shop for two families' christmases, but i plan to do this every year because it was also really exciting and fun.

and here we are looking all groomed and what not.

dinner was at my grandparents in north salt lake as usual and it was really cool to show my family all the gifts and food they had purchased for our secret santa family. also, travis is cute.

of course we had our music program. here's zane singing a jack johnson rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

my mom looking and sounding like a dream.

we love when the reed grandparents come down from idaho falls.

remy and i also sang a couple of songs together! santa claus is coming to town and jingle bells. he was nervous at first, but then became a little ham. wish i had pictures of this, but all i have is video. take my word for it; it was cute.


then we opened presents, rem's favorite part of the night.

after presents and dessert, we headed to drop off our secret santa gifts. we left remy with trav's parents because, let's be honest, the family lives in a sketchy part of town where the majority of calls travis runs include stabbings and drug overdoses, and it was 10:30pm.

their house was spotless and they had a nice tree set up. the kids were so excited to see the presents, and their mom cried when she saw everything. i got to hug my students and hear all about their christmas break. this poor mom has 4 kids and struggles to make ends meet; they wouldn't have had a christmas without my family donating. sweet travis shed a few tears after we left, thinking of all the presents remy would open the next day and how very fortunate we are, and the empathy he felt for our secret santa family.



then we headed home and remy opened a present before bed, a cute christmas book, and left out milk and cookies for santa.

then travis put together that amazing front end loader that remy was going to be so excited to see in the morning. travis and i took turns putting each other's christmas out, too. as you can see, we were all spoiled rotten. playing santa with travis is the best.

the next morning my family all came over to see remy open his presents. while he is the only grandchild on my side, everyone loves to come watch him open his presents. the magic of christmas is so much stronger when you have a santa believer in the house.

as expected, remy was delighted with his front end loader. he stopped and quietly said, "that's my front end loader!" and then ran to it.

travis opened a very exciting gun. exciting, if you say so.

travissanta brought me a new rope! and a lot of other climbing equipment. my grandpa was very confused about why i was so excited for a rope.

then we bundled up and headed out into the blizzard. we barely made up the hill leading out to the main road.

next stop was travis's parents house for breakfast and more presents.

pure madness as you can see.

but the best kind of madness.

we were again spoiled at grandma's house, as usual. and breakfast was sooooo goooood. we stayed for a few hours until it was time to eat again.

and then headed to my parents' house for lunch and more presents.

chad loved spoiling remy with that blue cat.

we always have english crackers and then wear the hats and tell the horrible jokes.

these pictures are out of order, but dinner was insanely good. my mom's traditional homemade pasta.

remy had a short nap, but was exhausted all day. and yes, he wore his pajamas all day too.
we were again spoiled by my parents. i believe remy opened about 30 presents throughout the day. dudley dursley style.

our next stop was travis's grandparents for dessert and MORE PRESENTS. we didn't stay long because it was mass chaos and we were exhausted, and we wanted to go home and watch remy's new movie, toy story, and have popcorn and the new tea travis picked out for me. (chai and white chocolate peppermint mhmmmm.)

christmas was the best, remy believing in santa is SO much fun, we were all spoiled, and we ate everything. xo.