Christmas Eve 2008

Playing our family Christmas gift of Kerplunk!

Our new Christmas jammies....nothing feels better to sleep in!

Reading Twas the Night Before Christmas....

Acting out the story of Christ's birth. Cameron is the Host of Heaven!

A perfect picture of Christmas love.....

Making the gingerbread house. Our second attmept. I was in

charge of the first one, which required lean-two's. By morning

it needed to be condemned! Dad is much better at this kind of stuff!

Christmas is the greatest! We had so much fun and have our traditions we look forward to. We always go to a Christmas Eve service and have a yummy dinner and then drive around looking at Christmas lights. There is an amazing house in Paradise that puts on quite the show. They have a light show that is synchronized to music. You drive up and tune the radio to a channel and then watch about a five minute show. It's amazing!

Then we all come home and settle in for the night! We start by making a Christmas birthday cake for Christ. Ellie loves this part, espcially. Then we open our special Christmas jammies and one family gift....usually a game. This year it was Kerplunk! Very fun game! John read the story "Twas the Night Before Christmas", even though we don't do Santa as he scares the tar out of Ellie! Yes, even to this day she avoids him. When kids at school ask about Santa, she kindly tells them she doesn't like him much and her parents buy her presents.) But this reading is especially cool because we have the book John's family had when he was little. And lastly we read over the story of Christ's birth while the kids use the creche scene to act it out.

And once the kids are in bed and safely sleeping......the real work begins! This year John had to assemble the train table and doll house. He's the man! =)

We are thankful all year for our blessings, but especially at Christmas. We are thankful for God's gift of Christ and accept that gift happily =)

Hope you all had a special Christmas Eve as well!