Christmas

Christmas was different this year. We had the tradition Noche Buena for Christmas Eve which is basically the only kind of Christmas that my family celebrates. I love it and its always a lot of fun. This year, Bruce's parents and grandmother joined us as well as some of my uncle's family that recently arrived from Cuba. There was tons of good food and the weather was perfect. We ate outside, had a mini fireside about the birth of Christ, danced a little and waited for Santa to come (Santa comes early for Noche Buena because he obviously needs to start a little early to get all those presents delivered in time ;).

Rue received a lot of gifts from family - can you tell she's spoiled?

With my beautiful sister!

Love her

These 2 are always next to the food.

So handsome 

Blurry attempt at a group picture

After Santa dropped off all the presents for Ivan in the backyard (something else weird that my family does), the adults opened there presents. It was really nice. We were definitely spoiled by the amount of gifts we received. But the best gift of the night was a surprise gift for my grandfather by my aunt and uncle. Once we were picking up all the wrapping, by aunt acted like she found one last gift behind the tree for my grandfather. He opened it and couldn't believe his eyes. She prepaid for him to go on a 16-day trip to wherever he wants to go in Europe. He even got a little emotional. My grandfather loves to travel. Ever since my grandmother passed away, he hasn't been able to travel internationally again. So he was beyond excited when he opened this gift. It was a pretty neat experience.

On Christmas Day, Blaine and I opened our gifts. I wanted to make a big breakfast, but Blaine woke up early and said that he would take care of it. He returned with 2 dozen donuts from no other place but Dunkin Donuts. He's keeping the Dawson tradition alive. Granted, we didn't even come close to finishing 1 dozen but it was nice starting and instilling family traditions from both sides of the family. For lunch, we had grandma Dawson's meatballs. It really made us miss her and miss all of the Dawsons in general. Christmas just wasn't the same this year without a trip to Delaware/Idaho! But we did have a great time opening our stockings and gifts. Blaine got me a really nice pet monitor (its a monitor for anything but I call it a pet monitor for now :]) so that I may check up on Rue when I'm out and about. We're trying to un-crate train her so this will help out with that. After we opened gifts, we went to the movies with my mom, Papo, Damaris and Bruce to watch Anchorman 2. It was a relaxing day and it was so nice to have Blaine not working for real (he is always working even on Saturdays/days off). 

Our Christmas tree this year - my mom made me those bows

Photo on our Christmas card

I was a little sad to see Christmas go so quickly, but I'm grateful for the opportunity we had to spend time emphasizing and thinking about the most important birth ever. Blaine's parents got me the prettiest Willow Tree nativity starter kit and I loved looking at it everyday. It really helped me focus on Christ and not get caught up in the craziness of shopping (I only went to the mall once for gifts - record breaking! So grateful for online shopping & amazon). We appreciate all the holiday cards, gifts and well-wishes sent. We hope you had a very merry Christmas!