The first afternoon of winter break was spent decorating gingerbread houses

The kids ended the school term on Thursday at 12 noon. Marcy took them to Chipotle and then it was home where they were greeted with their first present of the season: gingerbread houses. They proceeded to spend the afternoon decorating their new houses. By 4pm I was home and it was off to see the new Star Wars movie. We all absolutely loved the movie.

At the Brown Palace celebrating Christmas tea

On Friday we had a lovely Christmas dinner at the Briere’s house and then Saturday we had the long awaited Brown Palace Christmas tea. Anna decided to forego ski team to visit the Brown Palace for a special Christmas tea. We went for the first time last year and we all loved it. They do a fantastic job with special tea, sandwiches, scones and an assortment of sumptuous desserts.

A couple of inches of snow was just enough for some fun sledding on the hill by our house

On Saturday night we went to the Mile High Church for their Christmas service. It was pretty impressive. It is a big church and they gave everyone a candle as we came in. There was lots of music and singing and at the end everyone in church (probably over 2,000 people) got to light their candle and with the lights dimmed it was an amazing spectacle. It was a lovely service and we will be going back again. On the way home it started snowing and we woke up on Christmas Eve to about 2″ of fresh snow, our first significant snow of the season. So, the kids put on their snow gear and went out for some sledding on the hill by our house.

Gathering by the tree before the opening of presents on Christmas morning

Christmas Day finally arrived and the kids were super excited. Even though this was our first year the kids knew about Santa it didn’t reduce their excitement for the day. We started at sunrise with both kids ready to go downstairs and discover what presents they had.

Anna with her beautiful new red coat she got for Christmas

We had our traditional Indian lunch as we went to our local Indian restaurant for their lunch buffet. And I made fruit salad and whipped cream for dessert, just like I used to have at Christmas when I was a kid. We went for a family walk around the park in the brisk winter air and we finished off the day with Star Wars: Rogue One since the kids had never seen it.

Jude reading his Big Nate book, taking a break from playing soccer in the basement