Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas at our house this year and it was perfection. We usually always head up to my Mom's on Christmas Day but this year my sister, Kelley, hosted Christmas dinner at her house, which was nice for us since we live 3 minutes from each other. It was great to head home after a long full day and be able to just chill out.

This year for Christmas Eve everyone wanted to do different appetizers and I wanted seafood and a big salad. It worked out great! Reilly made Mexican 7-layer dip. Ailey made a delicious cheeseball. We also had two kinds of shrimp...tempura and coconut. We had wontons. Every year the kids request a cheese platter with cheese from other countries and Tyler picks out a bunch of cheeses and makes little flags to label them. He did it again this year. It was delicious. We also made my grandma's cherry jello squares. I made a huge spinach salad with strawberries, apples, candied pecans, red onion, feta cheese and a mustard vinaigrette. The girls also made rolls. It was divine.

After dinner we had our Christmas program that Ailey and Bryn planned out. It was full of stories, singing of carols, talents, and the nativity.

Tyler donned a less terrifying Santa hat...a step up from his terrible turtleneck of 2015. We opened up our Christmas jammies and ornaments and let the festivities begin!!

Reilly narrated the Christmas Pageant as usual.

Kameron was a very enthusiastic Joseph. Ha ha! When you are the only boy, you are Joseph forever.

This year we had somewhat coordinating pajamas. Reilly and I had the same style of pajamas but different colors and so did Ailey and Bryn. Tyler and Kameron were matching in their Seahawks gear.

We played a big tournament  of Chicken Foot and then Tyler read The Night Before Christmas.

The kids put out their stockings and set out cookies and eggnog for Santa. Then we took our usual Christmas night pictures. Always entertaining...

Then we turned off all the lights in the house, lit our candles, and Tyler read the Christmas story to us from the Bible out of the book of Luke. We sang Silent Night and said family prayer. Then with all the lights still off we walked the kids to their bedrooms by candlelight and tucked them in.

Later that night we enjoyed one of these, got an energy boost, and Santa's little helpers got to work.

This is our favorite summer time drink...the Avatar... that we buy from a place near the lake. We cracked the recipe a few days before Christmas and now we can enjoy these delicious beverages year round. Merry Christmas to us. :)

And to all of you!!