Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

My favorite part of Christmas is Christmas Eve. The festivities begin with us making decorations and then decorating the missionaries’ apartment. Erin and I were in charge of making the construction paper stockings. (We had a little difficulty finding the missionaries’ new apartment this year. It didn’t help that their new neighbors couldn’t confirm that it was their apartment either. But after making a few desperate phone calls, we got confirmation that we were in the right place.)


After dinner, we listened to my dad read Luke 2. Then we acted out the Nativity It never gets old. (Blake was such a good donkey. And Zeke made a great sheep . . . he has the super scary/evil sounding BAAAAAH down just right.)

Then Lily & Zeke got to open their presents from Grandma and Grandpa. Yeah for new pajamas and cute over night bags!

Christmas morning was a little different this year, because it was on Sunday and we had 9 am church. What to do about opening presents? I decided to get the kids dressed in church clothes before they even went downstairs to see the presents we set out for them. After church we would come home and open the presents under the tree. Lucky for me, that’s exactly how things worked out.

The lady bug seat was a huge hit! So was the lady bug umbrella. I now understand why a wise parent way back when taught their children that it’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. It was a pain having it open all the time . . . but it was Christmas and she loved her present so we indulged her. We only insisted that the umbrella not be open in hallways.

Then we headed over to my parents’ house. Where we opened more presents. Zeke loved the Elmo doll Erin got him. I was expecting him to squeal with delight. He was rather quiet about it, but loves walking around with Elmo and sleeping with Elmo.

Lily loves all the dress up things Mickayla gave her. Especially the necklace. She wore it for a week straight!

Reed loved his new tuxedo shirt.

We spent the rest of the day playing games, watching basketball (Scott loves that NBA games are back), and relaxing.
Christmas was simple this year. Money has been tight while Scott continues to look for a job. We are grateful for what we have, what we were able to give our children, and for the generous “Secret Santa”s for the unexpected gifts and kindness they showed us. Most importantly, we are grateful for our families and the knowledge we have of the restored gospel, that it is the birth of our Savior we are celebrating and the wonderful gift of eternal life that He has given each of us.