Christmas Eve in Charlottesville. 

This was our first family Christmas not in California. It was a little different, but as we all know, home is where the heart is. We enjoyed being together, but also missed Ashley and Brandon (Ashley was 9 mos preggers and couldn't travel). Good thing for Skype!

We enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve dinner, eating the food that 'Jesus would have had', and fulfilled family traditions of reading Luke 2, watching The Nativity, reading T'was the Night Before Christmas, and the Hansen tradition of talking up the Chimney to Santa. We received new PJs made cookies for Santa, and started a new tradition of homemade Black and Whites!

Dinner.

Hansen Family.

Gma and Charlotte

Tarin and Sawyer

Tarin and Nic

Matthew and the girls. I love this photo!

Twas the night before Christmas

whispering up the Chimney - Charlotte said it to Caidence who then said it up the Chimney for her.

Making Cookies for Santa.

Final product.

Ryan and I cozy in our PJs!

There was a lot of excitement leading up to Christmas morning!

Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve Eve was spent together doing last-minute Christmas shopping. I love the decorations and charm of Michigan Ave at Christmas.

Michigan Ave.

This is a photo on Christmas Eve Eve from Wabash and Monroe.

This year, we held "our Christmas" on Christmas Eve. It was the first time on Christmas Eve we weren't taking a 6am flight to meet our families, so it was quite exciting to wake up in the morning and get to enjoy Christmas together in the morning! Due to a late night of packing, there are no photos of us that morning, but this is what our tree looked like this year:

We opened stockings in bed, and then turned on the oven for my delicious Grandma's-Recipe cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We had a blast opening up presents, and as always, Ryan spoiled me rotten!

All too soon we were rushing off to the airport to catch our flight -- surprisingly, the airport was the emptiest we have ever seen it! We breezed through security and were on our way to Charlottesville, VA.

American Airlines Wing, ORD on Christmas Eve.

Christmas

I love Christmas. We started an early tradition when we were dating to have our "own" Christmas before celebrating with our families. This is something we have kept doing and I love our special time together each year.

As part of our celebration this year, we went to Welcome Yule, a Christmas concert/show put on by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was AMAZING! and may have made it into my annual Chicago tradition. I loved the celebration of Christmas and Christ that they emphasize in their show.

It's been unseasonably warm in Chicago this winter, so we enjoyed a brisk walk home from the concert. I especially love our late night walks through the city -- it's so quiet and peaceful and sometimes it feels like we have the whole place to ourselves.