We had a great Christmas and Hanukkah this year! We started the festivities with the first night of Hanukkah, which this year came a few nights before Christmas.

The first night we made latkes (potato pancakes) which are always delicious!! Then we lit the menorah and let Sam open up a little cardboard menorah that had a piece of chocolate gelt in it for each night of Hanukkah. We also tried to show him how to spin the dreidel but that was a little tricky and made Sam very frustrated. Finally we let Sam open one present. The first night he got a school bus/Elmo/lego thing. He loved it!

A few days later Nana and Grandpa Jerry came to visit. Sam loved spending time with his grandparents!

On Christmas Eve day, we all went to the National Botanic Gardens (which are indoors!) to check out their holiday train display. There was quite a line but it was worth it! They created such a cool display. They had little replicas of important buildings in the area, created entirely out of plant parts like acorns and twigs. And going through the whole display was a train track with lots of little trains chugging by. Sam loved it!

That night, we made sugar cookies and left some out for Santa. Sam had a great time helping us decorate but definitely ate more than he made!

The next morning Sam was so excited to see what Santa had brought him (a train set!). After breakfast, we opened up our presents, and Sam got to pass all the presents out. Surprisingly, we had to hurry him up. Every time he opened a present, he wanted to just play with it instead of opening the next one. I am glad he was able to savor the moment! I am sure that won’t be true next year.

After opening the presents, we got busy cooking Christmas dinner. We basically had a repeat of our Thanksgiving dinner and it was delicious!! After a few photo ops, Sam dug in with his new construction themed utensils that Nana and Grandpa gave him! I think he liked the food!

That night we decided to go see the White House Tree.  Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones with that idea and it was VERY crowded! Sam was way more impressed with the humongous menorah than the Christmas tree, which makes sense considering the tree was about 5 times the size of our tree and the menorah was about 5,000 times the size of our menorah!

Ben had the great idea of driving a few blocks over to see the Congressional Christmas Tree. It was way less crowded and much bigger!

That night we came home and skyped with my Grandpa out in California. Sam was really excited to show Great Grandpa Gene his cookie but he was not willing to share it!

I’ve never spent the holidays at home before (even when I was younger, we always went to California or Minnesota to visit family) so I was a little nervous that it wouldn’t be the same. But I actually had a great time and I think everyone else did too! This may be a new tradition!