Colorado Christmas

"But all along the Rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
The closest thing to heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow."

Unfortunately, there was no Colorado snow on Christmas this year. In fact, there was no Kansas snow when we went out for our Kansas Christmas either. But that didn't make our Christmas celebrations any less fun.

Our Colorado Christmas started with a big Christmas Eve gathering at our house. This year, my grandparents and aunt and uncle were able to come out from Kansas to join us. It was great to have everyone together, and it was nice to open our house for the festivities.

Presents under our tree.

I used the opportunity to practice some more of my recipes for my sister's upcoming wedding. Plus we had a couple of soups and lots of other goodies and snacks.

Lots of snacks, including my Irish Creme Brownies, Sea Salt Caramels, and Amaretto Chocolate Truffles

Relaxing and chatting.

Gathering for presents!

My family has the odd tradition of opening all of our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. I'm not entirely sure how the whole thing started, but I always remember opening presents when it was dark outside, so we must have been doing it this way for a while.

Presents!

We continued our new tradition of each adult getting one larger gift instead of multiple little ones. Matt got a new GPS to replace the one that was stolen from his car a couple of months ago, and I got awesome purple snow pants that I'm psyched to use next time we go skiing!

Though the present-giving was done after Christmas Eve, we still had a big Christmas diner on Christmas Day. We headed over to my folks' house to continue the Christmas craziness!

Sisters on Christmas.

The kiddos had fun with the new TV set up for their enjoyment... until the little one fell asleep.

Dinner time!

After dinner, Matt was nice enough to help with the dishes while my mom made our now traditional spiced whipped cream for the desserts.

We continued the family fun with relaxation and games after dinner. It was fun hanging out after all the stresses of the holiday were gone.

Fun on Christmas night.

And then, another Christmas was gone. Luckily, I didn't have too much post-holiday depression because we still had Kansas Christmas to look forward to!