Christmas Eve

It wouldn't be Christmas without enchiladas on Christmas Eve served on our Christmas china. This year Lindsay and Boyd were here for Christmas, and Cleone along with Don and Kathy were able to join us for some celebrating.



Once everyone arrived we pulled the enchiladas out of the oven and let the feast begin.

Here is the kid's table. We also have a tradition of having poppers at each place setting. These are colorful tubes with a prize inside along with a party hat (usually a crown). Everyone opens their popper and places their crown on their head for the dinner. This year our poppers had whistles (one of each of eight notes) and music. After dinner we played some Christmas carols with our whistles and then with our traditional Christmas pipe bells.

Here are all the adults with their crowns and plates full of food. We also enjoy a variety of Martinelli's sparkling cider to add to the festive feel of the meal.

After dinner and the musical mayhem we read the Christmas story from the scriptures and then moved on to playing Christmas Carol Pictionary. Everyone got into the drawings - even Adam. If you look closely, Adam is drawing an angel singing (Hark the Herald Angels Sing). Some of the drawings were hilarious.

We had asked Ashli to prepare a song on the piano that we could all sing with. She came with a book of duets, so Lindsay joined her at the piano and we all sang along.

Just before everyone left, Charlie (Dan's brother) arrived. We fixed him up with some dinner, and then after the Porters and Stapleys headed home, we played a couple more games. Pictionary had gotten Adam in the mood for games.

But it was getting late. So we moved into the living room with the Christmas tree. Our tradition is to open one gift on Christmas Eve - new jammies! There is much anticipation for this moment. Not because of the new pajamas, but because all the packages are labeled with reindeer names. No one knows who is which reindeer until Michelle reveals the match up on Christmas Eve. Then everyone opens their gift with pajamas (and there is a lot of shaking of packages and scouring the labels of the "big" presents). This has been a fun tradition for many years and keeps everyone (meaning kids) from guessing what might be wrapped under the tree for them.

This was an evening full of family and warm feelings of love and joy as we celebrated together. Merry Christmas!!