Holiday Happenings

Is it just me, or do the holidays fly by way too fast when you have a little one?! I feel like we got back from vacation in early November, and I was putting up decorations, then...BAM! I blinked and it's New Years already!

Even though December flew by, we still really enjoyed the holidays, and best of all we got to experience it with Hadley Kate, and see the wonder of Christmas through her eyes.

The first weekend in December, Kwajalein puts on an event called Light Up the Night. Everyone on island heads to the airport to watch Santa "fly" in, then Santa parades from the airport to the downtown area where there are food booths set up, shopping, and Christmas performances. The night is capped off by the lighting of the "Christmas tree."  If you would like to see Santa's arrival by canoe two years ago, click here.

This event is what I would lovingly call "Kwaj-y." It can be a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit when it's 85 degrees and humid outside.  It's hot and tropical, so the food selection is more along the lines pulled pork and tacos in a bag, as opposed to hot chocolate and funnel cakes. And the "Christmas Tree Lighting" is less evergreen and more Palm Tree:

This was the tree from a couple of years ago, but you get the idea

BUT, despite some unorthodox aspects, Light Up the Night is still a really fun way to kick off the Christmas season!

We ran into two of our favorite people...Sarah and Maya

Someone call US Weekly and figure out Who Wore it Best?! ;)

High School band performed Christmas Carols

And the dance classes performed

We kept Hadley up passed her bedtime to watch some of the performances, and this was the face we got the whole way home...

#overit

The next day we took Hadley to meet Santa for the first time! I was so so excited for this...don't judge me or anything, but I was secretly hoping for one of those clutch Santa photos with the kid melting down on Santa's lap. For example..

All I want for Christmas is a clutch photo like this

Santa was set up at the local library, and I was ready to wait in line forever like you do at the malls for Hadley to meet Santa. I was not prepared for the Christmas miracle that awaited us when we arrived...NO LINES!!! I'm serious...we walked right up and plopped Hadley down on Santa's lap! What's more...we could take our own photos and it was all FREE!!! Never will meeting Santa be this easy again! Hadley is normally pretty good with strangers, but I was still unsure of how she would handle meeting the big guy. We were more than pleasantly surprised when Hadley rocked her meet and greet like she and Santa were old friends...

She was slightly unsure at first, but then Santa hooked her up with a yummy candy cane...

And this cuteness ensued...

Saying thanks to her new bff, Santa...

After our Santa visit, we hung around the library and played in the bean bags...

Then mom and dad had fun posing in the photo stations...

And we ran into our friends Jon and Angela at the coloring station...their boys were around there somewhere ;)

They were loving every minute of it :) hehehe this picture makes me laugh so hard!

We got ready for Christmas, by having our annual White Elephant gift exchange at our friend's Jane and Rich's house the weekend before Christmas. As always Jane and Rich went all out in the decoration department...

How pretty is their backyard

We have always made our Christmas party an Ugly Sweater party in years past, and even though this year wasn't an official "ugly sweater" party, Johnathon and I still did our best to represent:

We also played a couple of games in addition to a particularly aggressive White Elephant game. We took our turns bashing a pinata:

Cher taking a swing at it

Then it was Wes's turn

 Lindsey aced her pinata photo op

And we finished out the night with a really fun game that Chamee and Angela came up with. They created this giant ball of Saran wrap with little gifts hidden in different layers of the ball. Each person had to wear food handlers gloves and tried there best to unwrap as much of the ball as possible before the person next to them rolled a "1" on the dice, which meant you had to pass the Saran ball to the next person. This was a really fun game to play if you have a Christmas party with a lot of people!

Cher working on unwrapping the massive Saran ball

half the group watching the game

Our actual Christmas Eve was simple, and spent with just our little family which was perfect. We went to Christmas Eve service at the open air Chapel on island:

I always think Christmas Eve service is really special because we light candles at the end of the service, and sing Silent Night by candlelight with the sound of the waves in the background. After the service, we can home and snapped some super cute pictures of Hadley by the tree:

Once Hadley was in bed, Santa enjoyed the hot chocolate and cookies that she set out for him...

Hadley took the liberty of leaving Santa 2 mugs of hot cocoa...just in case ;)

We laid low the rest of Christmas break, and watched too much football ( GO TCU!! GO MICHIGAN!!) and rang in the New Year like the party animals that we are:

Scrabble and Champs...Happy New Year to us!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful, joy filled Christmas!!