a magical Christmas Eve

Christmas in Palo Alto was just perfect. 

 With our India trip ending on December 23rd, Kylan and I knew we would be hard-pressed to make it to Arizona to spend Christmas with his family. So, we figured out a way to get them all to come to us! It might sound a little bit selfish, and maybe it was, but we all had a really amazing time celebrating Christmas together in a new space. For a couple of major reasons, this year's Christmas was going to be different anyway and I think it was fitting that we celebrated it in a new way.

We kept a few Lundeen family traditions - including a Mexican feast for Christmas Eve dinner complete with tamales, sweet chili lime enchiladas, and spicy chicken dip - and we created a few new traditions. One that will definitely stick was the Christmas Eve floating lanterns. Whitney's friends were kind enough to invite us to share their lanterns and it was just magical.

We gathered at the high-school football field to send the lanterns off (assuming we might need extra space for any wayward lanterns - which turned out to be a really good idea!)

Once we got the hang of lighting and sending off the lanterns, we were able to get a bunch of them off at the same time. It was so beautiful! Somebody started singing "Silent Night" and everyone joined in as we watched the lanterns float upward - it was a beautiful night and a new tradition that we plan to incorporate in future Christmas celebrations. Hooray for traditions - both old and new!