We had our first family Christmas at home this year. It is a little lonely being so far away from family, but we had a beautiful Christmas with the boys and our friends. We had lots of lovely snow for Christmas, cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa. Rhino ran downstairs in the morning after we read Luke 2, excited about his advent treat that he’d gotten for the past 24 days. He completely overlooked the tree and presents and ran straight for the empty advent calendar. We had to turn him around and set him straight before he saw all the presents and pointed with a great big “WOW!”

Rhino enjoyed unwrapping the gifts. He’s much better at it this year than he was last year, when he’d only peel a tiny little scrap at a time! Everything unwrapped received another “WOW!” and he was just as excited about Heron’s toys as he was his own. Heron liked to just lie under the tree and gnaw on his toys, then eventually fell asleep on the sofa from all the excitement!

We received so many wonderful gifts from our family. We really are blessed to have such wonderful people who care about us. I only wish they all could have been with us to share in the festivities. I would love it if all our family, both Matt’s and mine, could come together for the holidays, but I don’t really see it happening anytime soon. We’d love to go back to the States to spend future Christmases with family, but while we’re stationed in Japan, it is too much of a trip to trek all over the country for the holiday. Maybe someone will want to come out here with us one of these years!

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