The Crawdad Chronicles: Creech Christmas

I love that we now stretch out our Christmas celebrations a little before and a little after Christmas. Its nice to spread out all the holiday fun! As soon as I picked the boys up from their last day of school we headed to the beach for our Creech Christmas celebration.

Time to play with cousins

And read with Nene

Nene had Santa hats for everyone.

Captivated by the Christmas music box

Time for presents!

My mom asked me if she could get A and K a kindle this year "so we could all have a few hours of peace and quiet" as she put it. 😂 They were SO excited.

A real microscope!

Georgia loved her pogo stick

Pappy just sitting back and taking it all in

Greer and David gave Kate this little doll vanity that she went nuts over.

She purposely took it to my parents room to play by herself so she didn't have to share it.

Vivi loved the pogo stick too

Showing off their new jackets and wearing their matching pants from last Christmas

James was excited to get his own Ezy roller

All sorts of entertainment for the rest of the day

It never fails that everyone wants to play with the same toy at the same time

Later that afternoon these two came with me to pick up a Chick fil a nugget tray for the kid dinner.

Some of my very favorite people

My mom is the best. She let them eat by candle light (battery operated), fixed them a special dinner of nuggets, homemade bread and applesauce and finished off the meal with a birthday cake for Jesus for desert. Needless to say the kids thought all of this was AMAZING.

Lighting the candle for Jesus

I also love that she always uses baby Jesus from her main nativity set that we always had growing up on our mantle at Christmas time. So many wonderful memories represented!

Ryan snapped this shot while no one was looking and I loved how it captured all that was going on, the kids with my mom, Greer and I chatting away, and my dad about to open the wine :)

I decided I was going to be intentionally low key this day so I never even changed out of my pjs!

The kids are in bed! Hooray!

Over the years we have wised up and now the adults eat separately for Christmas. I always joke that we eat plenty of family dinners every week and Christmas is one time I want to actually eat in peace! My mom made bread, I did a potato dish, my dad always does the steak, Greer made salad and a delicious seafood chowder- such a good meal!

Being the oldest grand kid comes with perks, like getting to come back up after all the other kids are asleep.

Well then a random alarm in the house went off near the boys' room so we got another visitor

I went to check on these two- what is it about seeing your kid asleep that makes them look so young and sweet? Also I'm pretty sure they have outgrown the pack n play at this point...

A few more of Nene's special touches to make the holiday extra fun. No other night light at home will ever compare

The next morning we loaded up and went to church. Andrew and Kate loved being in the same class with Georgia, I forget sometimes they are only 11 months apart!

Nene wanted a picture with all the kids but these were the only two who would come.

Later that day- cookie time!

I have so many memories of making roll out sugar cookies with my mom growing up. I don't ever remember her using a mix or box (I sure can't say the same)