Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It was completely new for us. For the first time ever, we were by ourselves. We made it as nice as possible, but we missed our families dearly. And also for the boys and my first time, we actually experienced a real white Christmas. That was kind of neat.

Dono making his first snow angel.

Elliott shoveling snow.

We both like traditions that our families practice, so it was fun to mix our favorites to make it our own. We also found a new one that we will be adopting. For years, even before we had the boys we had conflicting opinions of "Santa Claus". We like that he is a nice man and generous, but he takes away the true meaning of Christmas and doesn't seem to tie into the Savior very well. Dan's been doing a lot of family history lately and came across a tradition from his Hungarian veins that we have decided to make a new tradition. In Hungary, Santa Claus (but known as a different name) brings candy to those children who have been good all year long and a stick to those who have been naughty. The kicker is, no one is perfect except for the Savior, so everyone gets candy and a stick because we all do things that are both naughty and nice. Then it helps us know that because Christmas occured we have our Savior who will help save us from the naughty things we do if we repent and do better.

We had family home evening on Monday and introduced this concept to Donovan (and Elliott) so that when they woke up Christmas morning they would see what they got. In the morning Dan reminded them about what they were to look for. Donovan was kind of upset when he saw the sticks when he came down the stairs. But when we showed him that there were candies in there too he felt better. I think as the kids get older they will understand the meaning even better.

After a crepe breakfast and the opening of our gifts, the boys drew pictures for the local policemen and firemen to say thank-you for working on Christmas. (It turns out only the police were working. Kinda scary, I hope the firemen were at least on call.) We have learned from past experience that the authorities will not accept any goodies, they just chuck them for safety, so we thought a card or picture couldn't hurt. Donovan and Elliott even got to meet a nice policeman. It was nice to have a conversation and not be stressed because you were pulled over in order to do so. :)

For dinner that evening we decided that since we had no family with us that we would share our Christmas dinner with those that were away from family as well. We found our long lost family from church and from Dan's work. It turned out great! I think we'll do this every year so that we can at least have an adopted family, even just for a day.

Brendan, Dan, (baby)Liam, and Brady

me

Sister and Elder Brunner (senior missionary couple), and Dani (we had a friend Keith too, but he had to leave early).

We had a great evening with great company (who even helped with cleaning up!). We hope you all had a wonderful day as well! Merry Christmas!