Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a bit different for us this year, this was the first year in my life that I did not go to my grandfather’s house for Christmas Eve.  He passed away 2 years ago, but last year we still had it there since my Aunt owned the house.  Earlier this year my aunt sold the house so we wouldn't be able to meet there this year.  We could have moved our Christmas Eve gathering to another house but with everyone having families of their own it is hard to do a gathering on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day both.  It is kind of sad to see a tradition go away, but we decided to still do the present exchange and just moved it to Christmas day.

 

With this change we found ourselves with nothing to do on Christmas Eve.  I've always thought it would be nice to do a Christmas Eve service so we called my parents to see if they would be interested in doing one with us.  There church as having one at 7pm, so we decided to do dinner together and church afterwards.  I worked until 2pm so it was still a little rushed to get the ham biscuits made and a few last minute things done, but we made it there by 5:30 and had a nice meal.  It was cold and a little rainy so the soup and hot ham biscuits were perfect. 

 

The service was very nice, the girls sat with us and did very well.  They even went down and did communion with us.  The highlight was the candles they passed out, each girl got to hold one (with assistance).  The wax dripped on Olivia a little and she was a little timid about holding it after that.

 

After service we came back and had some cookies and took a few pictures by the tree. 

















Nana and Paw-Paw were trying to make the girls laugh so when it was Nana and Paw-Paw's turn for a photo the girls were busy trying to make them smile.

When we left the girls wanted to go see the Christmas lights so we drove down the street to a house that has tons and tons of lights that are synced to a music station.  We stayed for a bit listening and watching all the lights and inflatables.

 

When we got home it was already 10pm, we hurried to get everyone in bed so Santa could come but the girls were so excited.  They kept thinking they would hear Santa's bells and then they would realize the cat had come in (she has a bell on her collar) and they would say to each other, "No, that is just Cuddles"  They finally fell asleep around 11pm.