Christmas Eve

Our Advent wreath all changed for Christmas!  

One of our children's very favorite things is Secret Santa with each other at Christmas.  They talk about it all year and get each other very thoughtful, generous gifts.    We open them on Christmas Eve after BB and Poppy arrive.  This year Marc had Tucker.   My camera was not on a great setting apparently.

He got him a kindle and a case for it.

Julia had Charlie!

He got a Mandalorian Star Wars Lego set!

Tucker had Marc.

He got him a Lego brick storybook with fairy tales inside.  :)

Charlie had Julia-

She has always wanted a lava lamp-

Poppy helped us ice our red velvet cake-

Then we went outside to see Santa come by on the firetruck!

Then Marc grilled out steaks- we have had steak dinners for Christmas Eve for over 16 years now.

This year I bought British "Crackers" and put them over each place.  They are so much fun- you pop them open and inside are party hats, jokes to tell and a prize.  We saw them on "A Child's Christmas in Wales" and wanted to add them to our tradition.

Here are the boys pulling the cracker apart-

Poor Anniebug wasn't feeling so well.  She had a fever and a really sore throat.  She needed extra love and cuddles.

Per our tradition, the children sang the "12 Days of Christmas."

It's hard to hear Anastasia, but she was saying "Tree" very well.  :)



Then we had dessert and went for a ride around to look at Christmas lights-

This is the home of our piano teacher- it is so beautiful!

We came home and daddy read The Christmas Story to us.

After putting the children to bed the adults wrapped all the presents!  It was a huge job, but we got it done.  Then the adults watched Christmas Vacation and went to bed.