Durham Christmas, The Messiah, and SNOW

We do a lot of traveling at Christmas, so Christmases at our own home are very unconventional. We try, though, to have some "traditional" things we do every year (although, with pregnancies and babies through the years, we're still kind of hit-or-miss). One thing Brad and I love to do (and have done 3 out of 5 Decembers) is attend The Messiah performed in Duke chapel. Y'all. It is such a favorite. Of ours and everyone else in the Triangle. I literally cry every single time at the beauty of the music, the poignancy of the scriptures being sung, and the magnitude of the chapel itself. It's just inspired. We traded afternoons of childcare with our friends, Katie and Matt, so that we could all go to performances but not have to pay for 4.5 hours of childcare. #gradschoollifeyall

Back of Duke Chapel

The weather was so gross the day we went, but the chapel looked magnificent.

Both outside...

...and inside. Isn't this just breathtaking?

We didn't get a "proper" picture of the two of us, so please accept these selfies from two different angles.

Angle 1

Angle 2. Check out the bottom of the organ. There's actually a full-time organist on staff at the Chapel.

I love to decorate for Christmas, but given our busy travel schedules + small children + life, it's almost not worth it to pull out much of our decor. That said, the girls FULLY COMMIT to all things Christmas, so I do pull out a decent amount of decor and just accept that at this stage of life, it's going to be a lot of work. Watching them love the Christmas tree and ornaments is pure magic, so here we are. 

This year, I pulled out only ornaments that were child-friendly and just left all of my pretty ones safely tucked away. We let the girls hang all the ornaments exactly where they wanted (and then let them proceed to move them around every day...multiple times a day). It was looking SO FANCY. I put up our star topper and a pretty bow, but other than that, it was completely the girls' handiwork. Just glorious.

Lily thought the tree needed a mask and some bunny ears, too.

I finally got Brynna's stocking made (red one on the left) and think I'm happy with it.

I really like that green check fabric on the cuff. It came from a sheet set I found at my grandparents' house, and I think it belonged to my mom when she was a child.

First Sunday of Advent: Lessons and Carols service at church

We celebrated family Christmas just a couple weeks into December, which was so fun. The girls loved their gifts, and just a few days later, we got gobs of snow! 10 inches. TEN INCHES. They were absolutely thrilled! We ended up getting four days, thanks to all of the ice + snow. Bless my heart, guys. That's a lot of being cooped up with little ones.

Watching the snow

 This look makes me laugh every time.

The girls really are sports about getting suited up. We have snow pants, coats and hats, but (until very recently...after this big snow) we didn't have proper snow gloves or boots, so we've been very creative with wrapping up: latex gloves under their winter gloves + 2 sets of socks tied up in grocery sacks under rain boots.

Our girls are the only kids in our neighborhood, so we're very much the only people out in outside when it snows. It's a lot of fun to have the run of all the snow.

The church across the street from our neighborhood.

From our front porch

Back porch

Brynn didn't really go outside...

...but she got close. Ish.

Then she settled for this while watching the biggies.

Lily was trying to catch snow on her tongue in these last two shots. Of course.

Walking down our street

SO MUCH SNOW!

Not our garage, but I thought it was so pretty.

Thawing out

It seriously took 30 minutes to get everyone geared up every time.

Making "snowmen"

"Helping" by "shoveling" the backyard

And cleaning off the grill. 

We had a right fun first half of December in Durham. The girls really do make it so very fun and magical. And the snow helps, too.