Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve is our biggest celebration. After the gifts are open Christmas day the grown ups go numb and become walking zombies. But Christmas Eve is our big, fun for me tradition. We eat soup, usually beef stew that takes 4 hours to prepare and is worth it. The meat is so tender, the gravy thick. Mmmm....

After dinner and dessert (which now goes on for days...) then we gather for the Nativity. Some of our reenactments have boardered on irreverent in the past, get the Godwin boys and my baby brother together and the laughs just flow. Now that the kids are older, and there are more, they play the parts and we insist on seriousness. I want my kids to grow up seeing the beauty and wonder in the story, not how funny Herod looked in his crown, or the shepards falling on the ground in great fear. Lauging.

We sing some songs, read some stories about how giving is better than recieving ended with "The Polar Express" book, then they are shipped off to bed. Then the adults are up till 2 AM wrapping all the gifts because we can never seem to get it done before hand..... I sleep in until I have the house pounding down on me. We have breakfast, a full breakfast, before one bow is undone... This drives the kids wild, but gift unwrapping can take hours and so the adults want to be prepared for the long haul. The rest of the day is cooking on big meal and then eating it as left overs for days. January comes and I'm ready to fast for the month.

Christmas Eve morning the kids try to keep themselves occupied.

Chris and Liz chose cards...


Asami making her first Pie...

Will ate up a lot of apples worths of skins that were being pealed for apple pie.

Here he is testing the length...

Our dessert buffet table.

This is the downstairs tree. We get two every year, one for the living room and one upstairs for the family room.

Both Liz and Essie wanted to be Mary, and so in the true spirit of Christmas, they both got to be her. So hereare our two Mary's headed to Bethlehem on the back of Malachi the donkey.

Eli was Joseph, he kinda got told he had to do it.

Thirteen year olds are so moody!

Tayla was the Angel. She was so sweet and really enjoyed her part.

Here is the angel telling the shepards about the wonderous event that has taken place. (Shepards- Cris, Amee, and Reston.)

They rushed to the manger to see the babe (Logan) wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. (I think the binkie adds to the scene...what about you?)

A tradition, that annoys Bob to no end, is actually new. We allow the kids to open one gift on Christmas Eve. I loved it when we were kids because Grandma would give us pajamas and that was the gift we would open. Even though every year you knew it was a nightgown I always looked forward to it. My mom has not the funds to get that many for soooo many grandkids. So our kids usually pick out something for each other. This is Essie and Tay opening one...

Our audience for the Nativity...

Joy reading a story about how this little boy wants everything and his list to Santa gets to long to mail and so he has to rewrite it. Kids are suppose to walk away with a renewed desire to ask for less... D0es it usually work? Probably not.

The kids are asleep, the gifts are wrapped and placed with care under the tree, the grownups are exhausted and wishing there was a Santa to do this job so that they could go to bed at a desent hour. It is 1 AM and were going to bed.....

Good Night.

Merry Christmas to All.