December 31, 2011

Christmas Continues: Christmas Eve

While most people have packed up their Christmas decorations and taken down the tree, ready to ring in the new year with diets and other new year's resolutions, Christmas will continue here at The Hardy Life for a few more days.  I haven't posted in awhile, but don't worry, I've been busy snapping photos of baby's first Christmas and I am ready to share.

It was a blessed Christmas for us, from start to finish.  Not only were we incredibly grateful to be celebrating the miracle of Clara's life, but we got to spend lots of wonderful time with family and had some time to stop and reflect on the blessing of Jesus' birth.

So, first things first.... Christmas Eve!!

This was the first year in I don't know how long (ever?) that I didn't go to a Christmas Eve service.  Our family has traditionally done the candlelight service at our church and Robert and I have made it a tradition to go to a Moravian Lovefeast together (if you're not from Winston-Salem and don't know about the Moravian Lovefeast, you should look it up.  It's one of the most simple, powerful, beautiful services ever - rich with tradition and love and fellowship.  It makes my Christmas every year.).  But between feeding and napping and pumping schedules, we just couldn't quite figure out how to make it work this year.  So, there was no church service, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fellowship.

First of all, Robert's parents came up to spend Clara's first Christmas with us.  All day Christmas Eve Clara got to play with Mama K and Daddy Bob and she was in heaven (I think they might have been, too.)  We're so grateful to them for being willing to come up and spend some time with us here.

Our other Christmas Eve tradition for as long as I can remember is to have dinner with our friends the Jacksons.  Since we've all become "grown-ups" and are coordinating more complex Christmas schedules, the meal the past few years has been moved to another night in December when we could all be home.  But this year it worked out for us to gather again on Christmas Eve and Aunt Trina hosted us for a wonderful meal.  It was great to have Clara experience her first Davis-Jackson Christmas, and made even sweeter by the fact that her Hardy grandparents got to join in, too.

We didn't get a good group shot, but here are a few photos of our evening together.

Clara opens a gift from Aunt Trina, with the help of Big Daddy and Daddy Bob

She's been making this face a lot lately.  Not sure what that's about, but it's adorable.

Yay!!  It's a book!

Oh, what a spread.  Trina does it right.
Clara and Sweet Mama
 It's always our tradition to have a Happy Birthday Baby Jesus cake for dessert...


This one was from Dewey's.  Yum, yum.



And Clara got to blow out the candles this year! (With a little help, of course...)




Clara opened her first present of Christmas.  (Spoiler: it was her Christmas jammies.  Evidence of them coming in the next post... Christmas Morning)

2 comments:

  1. I got to see Daddy Bob when he came to the Blood Drive on Dec. 29th. He said he had a wonderful Christmas...he enjoyed spending time with Clara...he said she is the sweetest baby! I so enjoyed hearing him tell me about Clara ~ Happy New Year to you, Robert, and Clara from Elberton, Mary Ann

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have been checking here every day to glimpse the first pictures of Clara's FIRST CHRISTMAS! Knew they would be special and adorable! Can't wait for MORE!!!!!! Happy New Year, Hardy/Davis Family

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...