Christmas Morning

It was a happy Christmas morning at the Graf home!

We got a late start on Christmas morning, coming down the stairs at 6 a.m. instead of the usual 5. If not for our quick hands, Christmas could have been ruined! (Because, as we all know, if the sun rises before all presents are opened, then all is lost.) It's tradition to have a sleepover with all my siblings in one room on Christmas Eve, but we opted out this year due to Jake's nighttime feeding. Instead, we set the alarm for 5:30 to get our little guy prepped for his first Christmas morning. After a quality stretching session, he was ready to party!

The boys squealed and quickly tracked down their gifts from Santa.

We always go youngest-to-oldest, one present at a time, but we gave them a pass and let Jakey go fourth.

A few favorite presents of the day were basketball gear for Matthew (natch), a funny "Ki-KEN" doll from Heidi for Christian (we all call him Kiken, if you haven't noticed), lots of pretty shirts for my sisters (lucky ladies), a sweet blanket from Nicole to Jordan (like the one I made for Matt back in the day ... before I started blogging), a grandbaby for my Mom (she always loves those), and a new bedroom TV for my Dad (you should see his old one. It's a 13" box circa 1998).

I gave Matt a freshly-installed fancy auxillary jack for his car (so that's why I didn't let him ride to Salt Lake with me and Jake the night before). Then I really knocked his socks off with the pair of Coldplay tickets I scored (those things are impossible to get a hold of. Seriously). This led to me scoring plenty of kisses and the boots I've been stalking for no less than four years (they finally went on sale!). Matt also got me the cutest pair of tall pajamas (speaking of things that are impossible to find...).

Tired of the parenthesis yet? Me too. My happiest memory of the morning was giving my mom a book that chronicled our epic family Florida trip. I sleep-deprived myself over that thing throughout the month of December, working on it until early hours of the morning while Jake slept. (I don't like to be on the computer when Jake's awake.) (Oops, that was another parenthesis.) Needless to say, I was relieved that she loved it -- and Matt was relieved that I finished it.

After a quick nap, Jake was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for round two of adoration and spoil-ation.

It was a merry first Christmas, indeed.

Christmas Eve

Jake decided to become friends with his car seat just in time for our 8-hour trek to Utah for the holidays, thank goodness. His reindeer friend also seemed to help him enjoy the ride.

Our first Christmas Eve activity was caroling at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. We missed it last year due to a trip to the North Pole, and it felt so special to be at HCI with the Long family again this year. There's such an incredible spirit that comes from singing about our Savior's birth in a place where His peace is so needed.

That night, we had a real live "Baby Jesus" for our annual nativity play. Jake's starring role automatically turned me into Mary and Matt into Joseph. After the play, my two littlest brothers came up to Jake. "You're the star of the show!," 6-year-old Josh exclaimed. Then 5-year-old Gabe leaned close to Jake and said, "Hey! You walk on water and heal people! You're amazing!" My siblings and I laughed and Gabe turned toward us. "What? He's Baby Jesus!" Looks like someone has been listening during scripture study.

Speaking of scripture study, we followed our reenactment of the nativity with this version of the sacred occasion and read a few verses about Christ. Per tradition, we saved Luke 2 for Christmas Day. But before we could even think about bedtime, our elf Pixie started to peek! Jakey ate his Santa hat in anticipation.

The babies were ecstatic to find Pixie's gifts on the front porch. Pixie treated Jake to another book, gifted me a Monopoly card game (you can win Monopoly in just 15 minutes!), and even knew that Matt needed a replacement aerobie.

With the excitement of Pixie and his boss, Santa, fresh on their minds, the babies hurried to prepare a letter and late-night snacks for the jolly old soul and his reindeer.

Then we enjoyed an impromptu Christmas dance party to send the evening out in style.

A few goodnight kisses later, the kids were all tucked in bed...

while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads, of course.

California Christmas

Now that we're a family of three, we wanted to establish a tradition of celebrating Christmas at our own home before heading to Utah for the holidays. And I'm happy to report that our little California Christmas was a success.

Let's discuss the atmosphere first, shall we? Our decorations weren't much different than last years', so click here to see how our house decks out for the holidays.

The biggest addition to our holiday decor was our Christmas disco ball. My friend Kaley gifted us this ornament, which happened to coordinate well with our living room doorway's silvery leaves, so we hung it in the center. Then we stepped back and noticed that the glittery bottom made it look like a disco ball, and a new Christmas tradition was born. We spent the month of December dancing to holiday music under our Christmas disco ball and created lots of happy little memories along the way. Today, it's the last Christmas decoration standing because we loved it so. Mistletoe, scmistletoe. It's all about the disco ball at the Davis home.

Jake's favorite part of Christmas -- aside from the dancing, of course -- was all of the lights. That baby loves him some good Christmas lights. We laid him under the tree one night and he was enchanted.

Jake liked being under the tree a bit more than taking pictures in front of it. Why bother smiling for the camera when you could be eating things like hats and hands -- two at a time?

We managed to sneak a little grin out of him before breaking for snack time.

Then it was time for presents! We took a little video of Jake opening his first-ever Christmas present, which was a sweet little Christmas book in case you were wondering.

Lastly, we helped Jake make his first Christmas ornament. It turned out rather cute.

And then we took off for Utah and some even bigger celebrations!

Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade

In 1908, an Italian-gondolier-turned-Californian decided that Christmas just wasn't Christmas unless the yachts were decorated in lights. (Okay, back then it was just gondolas, not yachts, but whatever.) And 103 years later, we became believers thanks to the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade, which just happens to be the first-ever/longest-running/most-impressive Christmas boat parade there is. It also just happens to be rated the 2nd-best holiday lights display in America. Although, I should file an official protest with the makers of said list because it ranks Rockefeller 1st and Disney World's dancing lights 3rd, and having seen all three in person, I strongly believe that the dancing lights deserve the gold trophy. That said, the parade of decked-out yachts and sail boats is definitely a lovely silver candidate!

Matt and I had planned on traveling to Newport for the parade last year but rain foiled our plans, so there was no way we were missing it this time around. We bundled Jakey up on a 60-degree Wednesday night and made the roundtrip drive to OC for some holiday spirit. After donating a few dollars to the local boy scouts, we were granted access to a fantastically un-crowded viewing area, where we fully enjoyed the show.

What's a Christmas parade without Santa?