Christmas Eve '08

Christmas Eve

If we couldn't be with our family, at least we could be with the Lewis' who are like family to us. Thank goodness they have a baby coming any day now so they couldn't leave town. :)

The girls got all festive before the party began...We ate Italian at Jillie's request- Angela's delicious lasagna and my homemade spaghetti. Jillie got her orthodontic expander out on Christmas Eve morning. We thought she would be getting braces on that morning too, but a Christmas miracle happened. :) He decided he didn't have time to do the braces and made her a retainer to hold everything in place til Jan 22 when she will start braces. So yea! She gets to eat again! We are relieved.

(Kobe, Blake, Reagan, Jillie, Connor, Jackson)

(Angela w/ 'Baby L', Cole, Dave, Greg)

After dinner Jillie lead the kids in some activities. I didn't want the kids to just play as usual, but to have some special Christmas activities. I planned 25 activities and used our countdown calendar to hold each one. As it turned out we rushed through some and skipped others (like a bunch of Christmas stories we were to read in between other activities) since we got a late start.

We played Christmas charades...

Wrote thank you cards to Santa...

Made reindeer food...

Played Pin the Nose on the Snowman...

A game of Holiday Bingo that I made years ago for a class party...

We also did a Christmas tree pinata, played "Santa Says", guessed how many candies were in the jar, sang Christmas songs, gave our best "Ho!Ho!Ho!", told what we wanted most for Christmas, and put the Baby Jesus in the manger.

The adults enjoyed watching some of A Christmas Story.

Then it was present time! Gifts for the kids including their Christmas Eve jammies.

I asked the girls to perform for us a Christmas Medley that Jillie composed earlier this month. It is so good I think and they do a great job! Take a look...

Their performance inspired the boys- to the surprise and SHOCK of the parents- to perform their own song.

Our party went well into the night, until the kids saw on emailsanta.com that Santa had reached the East Coast of the US. That encouraged everyone to get to bed. Our kids were finally asleep at midnight! Midnight. Yes, midnight. Time to clean up the messes. And do you think I'd wrapped anything yet?! No. Greg tried to help and organized and wrapped with me as long as he could hold out. Eventually I was on my own...

And this is the clock as I finally went up to bed. Yes. 6:07am.

I was just glad to be done before the kids got up so they could wake up to this...

And they did... about an hour and a half later...