Detours Along the Way to Heaven: Christmas in...March?

You'll have to excuse this Christmas post, but I've been so negligent of my little blog that I forgot to post anything about Christmas! Despite the sadness we endured Christmas evening, we still had a very nice Christmas Season.

December 23rd:

Time to get the tree!

Because we got the tree so late, we got it very cheap along with a free wreath!

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Eve was a lovely day relaxing and decorating the house up for Christmas! William was just beside himself with excitement this year. It was the first year he really understood what was going on.

Building a fancy train track with Daddy

Christmas present from Tess to Zenith ;)

Christmas Eve in their new pajamas!

Mary and Joseph, after traveling all over the countryside (the house) have finally arrive in Bethlehem!

Cookies and Milk for St. Nicholas! William was quite excited at this strange idea, especially the carrots for his reindeer.

Only the best for St, Nicholas! Homemade chocolate chip cookies with some nice, creamy raw milk :)

Christmas Day:

Merry Christmas from the Martello Household!

And while we were all sleeping, St. Nicholas decorated the Manger! And left a very special present...the first Gift of Christmas.

Sockings have been filled and the cookies, milk and carrot are gone!

The first Gift of Christmas has been opened and the Child Jesus has been laid in the Manger

Looking back through the photos I realize I didn't take any of the boys' reactions on Christmas morning. We chose not to see them through a viewfinder but instead enjoy those precious moments and keep them in our memories instead of in picture form. I will instead describe the scene as it was so heartwarming and special, I never want to forget it.

We woke William up as we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get to Mass. He came out of his room, blurry eyed but full of excitement as he first saw the Manger scene, all lit up and decorated. He noted every new decoration and then we opened the first Gift of Christmas. His joy at finding the Baby Jesus, delivered by St. Nicholas was so sweet and after singing Happy Birthday, we placed Him in His crib. He then proceeded to notice the stockings, the plate left with only crumbs and pieces of carrot. We talked of how Jesus was born today and how St. Nicholas came in honor of Our Savior to celebrate His birthday. William then presented his gift of "jewels" (the beads in the jar he had been collecting with every good action or sacrifice he had made throughout Advent) to Jesus and his little face was filled with pride at being able to present Our Infant King with a gift.

Marcellus ran from this to that, not really understanding, but catching the excitement from everyone else.

After Mass, we celebrated with a lovely brunch of herb Parmesan scrambled eggs, bacon and homemade croissants which I spent the past few days trying to conquer!

Still working on it, but I think Zenith enjoyed them ;)

After brunch we opened stockings but made no rush to open presents. We wanted the focus to be where it should be...on Our Lord in the stable. The boys went down for naps and Zenith and I had a nice time alone to open each other's gifts and relax.

One of the treats in Zenith's stocking

Zenith's Christmas gift...Benchmade knife which he spent the last several month dropping hints for ;)(which he played with all day)

I got a hand blender to replace the one that had very sadly broken a few months before. I use it for a lot of things so I was very excited to have a new and improved one to add to my kitchen! I also received some other small goodies from him. :)

After the boys woke up we did presents with them. The boys each got three presents in accordance with the number of presents Our Lord received; two from us...something to read and something to wear...and then one from St. Nicholas, something to play with. William got a small piano which he is fairly good at making small melodies on. Marcellus got a push/rocking giraffe which you'll see later in this post. The each got some goodies from both sets of grandparents as well.