Christmas Eve 2012

If you are following this blog you might be getting a ton of updates. I'm trying to record my December/ Christmas memories before the New Year. Which if you take a look at the calendar is tomorrow. Nothing like leaving everything to the last minute. One of these days I'll brake that habit. No wait, probably not. My brother Josh just tells me I'm turning into our Aunt Kay. There are worse things. 

Anywhoo, Christmas Eve couldn't come quick enough for the boys. For Mama it could have given me alittle more time. I spent the day working on any and every dish I could get done for Christmas dinner the next day. Plus cleaning. Lots of cleaning. Just because my family knows I'm a horrid housekeeper doesn't mean that I can't have a clean house for Christmas. By the way, I had a clean house for Christmas! Didn't take much after the our morning opening gifts. But that's another story, isn't. 

After our dinner of leftovers, we read our Advent devotional. For the last two years we have been using "Do You See What I See?: A devotional seek and find book for Advent" by Arden Mead and David Mead. I don't hate it. And the boys seem to enjoy searching for the item each day (it's different every day). After that we opened our Christmas Eve gift. In my family growing up it was tradition to get one gift on Christmas Eve. Mom picked it out, us kids didn't get to choose. And every year it was the same "thing." A new pair of pjs. I have continued the tradition with the boys. Last year I made the bottoms to their pjs. This year I decided to go ahead and buy them. Part of me was sad by this, but in the end I'm glad I did. I'm not sure I would have gotten them done if I was trying to make them.

Ian and Cai got Mario pjs. They were very excited. Not to mention adorable in matching pjs. 

Aiden got Lighting McQueen from Disney's Cars. He too was very excited. Of course when you ask him what his pjs are he says "White Queen" Still working on his speech. But he is getting better. 

Mark got a pair of fleece pants from Old Navy. I had gotten him a pair several years ago and they were his favorite. But last year when we went skiing they got stolen while he was at the hotel pool. These are not quite the same, but he still likes them. Ian and Aiden picked out a Star Wars shirt for him to go with the pants. It has Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader on it. For my brother Josh the boys picked out navy blue flannel pants with green snowflakes. I got him this shirt at ThinkGeek.com  It was perfect for him. 

My new pjs were WonderWoman themed. I got a WonderWoman bathrobe. Mark and Josh say I looked like a boxer with it on. :) My new WonderWoman nightgown has a blue cape! And I got knee high WonderWoman socks with little red capes on the back. They are awesome. Because the nightgown was sleeveless and Mark wanted me to be able to wear it in winter, he found me thigh high blue socks. They are awesome and very warm. It was the most wonderful pj set.

I wore the WonderWoman socks to the Field Museum on Thursday. 

After opening our gifts we got ready for Christmas eve service. It was a very nice service. Our Advent theme has been how we move from scarcity to abundance through God's mercy. I enjoyed it. Although Josh joked that with all our standing and sitting it felt like a Catholic service. Just missing the kneeling. 

Following the service we got the boys changed into their pjs and headed over to a friend's house for a Christmas Eve party. Tons of food, good friends, wine and beer. We had a great time. Plus it was a nice way for me to introduce my brother to many of our friends from church. Hopefully he didn't have to awkward of a time. Then it was home and to bed. Where Ian and Cai told me that "Santa was coming." This year the boys really brought home the idea of Santa. Which if fine. Mark and I have been pretty passive about the whole thing. My thought are I don't mind if they believe in Santa, but I wasn't going to be the one to push said belief. I try very hard to balance the image of Santa with images of Jesus and God. I figure both can hold true if you do it right. The good thing about the boys believing Santa was coming..... I got to tell them if he only came once they were asleep so they needed to close there eyes and sleep. :) Got to love a reason to get them to sleep. It's so hard to sleep on Christmas Eve. Mama and Dad of course had to wrap gifts, just like Josh predicted. I watched Muppet Christmas Carol while wrapping. It was a good night.