Christmas Eve 2011

I love slow mornings with my sweet little family!

Christmas Eve, Addie got up and immediately changed our little countdown to one day! She was so excited!

I had a list of a few things that I still wanted to do before Christmas. Addie wanted to make gingerbread men (they had done this at preschool). I had been given a kit to do so, which I was all excited about, because making real gingerbread is tedious, and not my favorite cookie! Well, I got started on the kit, and it was awful, awful, awful. I threw the whole thing away. Luckily, I brought home a little Oriental Trading craft that was leftover at school, that was a gingerbread man. It sufficed Addie just fine! Not my favorite craft or Christmas ornament, but she had fun and that's all that matters!

We just hung around the house the rest of the day, getting last minute Christmas things together and getting ready for our little dinner party that night. Our church has a children's Christmas Eve service that we go to each year, at 4:00 in the afternoon. Tommy and I get very little out of it, but it's geared towards children, and that's why we go. Then, at six, we have over anyone of our friends that want to come for a little dinner party. We started this our first year that we weren't in Lexington for Christmas Eve. I had to have a house full of people so that I wouldn't miss "home." And now that's our tradition and I would miss it if we didn't do it!

This year, since the kids are older, I wanted something for them to do (which still means the parents have to do it), so we made Reindeer Food. How much easier could this be? The kids loved it because it makes a mess, so again, everyone's happy. I had set up the kids a "kid table" and we all just crammed onto it to do the Reindeer Food.

Addie disgustingly licked up the sprinkles from the table. WHAT? I think she had seen William do it and followed suit - not that that makes it any better! Thankfully I used sprinkles and not glitter!

Next, Addie and her friends received a very special phone call. Tommy's uncle "knows" Santa Claus and he called to talk to all of them. His "Ho, Ho, Ho," is classic! I've heard "Santa" call Tommy's cousins when they were younger and it was hard for me to believe that he was now calling my child, and that she was loving it, and getting it! I mean - check out that expression:

A Christmas Eve night would not be complete without a reading of The Night Before Christmas. Amber is quite a talented storyteller and the kids were enthralled!

I can't remember what we served the kids to eat - maybe they ate the same as us - but Addie's mouth is dirty again!

Cody wasn't really feeling the story...

but his Dad got him going:

And yes, that is one of Addie's little "Snap n Style" doll's hats on his head - he played with it all night!

As the evening winded down - or as we tried to get the kids to - they all got on their Christmas jammies:

and huddled together for a picture!

Once everyone left, and I was officially pooped, we fixed Santa some treats in hopes he'd stop by and visit one very happy girl! (And after all this, she freaked out when we put her to bed that Santa was going to be in her house! I finally just had to tell her that he wouldn't come in!)

In all honesty, Santa would have probably really wanted some of that wine and not milk at that point in the evening!

Santa got Snickerdoodles, because that was Daddy's least favorite and what was leftover from the holiday baking!

And just for added security that he didn't miss our house, we put out Addie's reindeer food to lure the reindeer!

And finally the Christmas meltdown ensued. We had packed a lot into this special day, with not near enough nap and a too late bedtime for our little elf. Luckily, she went right to sleep after this!

It was a great day and night and we found ourselves being so thankful for the friends we have up here!