Christmas Eve

Traditions are great...except when they change. We have had the tradition of going to my Aunt Cathy's on Christmas Eve for the past 15 years or so. That ended this year with her moving to Memphis :( I volunteered to host partly because, who else would host it?? AND I wanted to begin a new tradition. You get to do that when you are the host. I also wanted to only eat appetizers, no sit down meal. That did not pass. Going to church on Christmas Eve, that passed! I grew up going to the 11 pm candlelight service when I was a kid and I cherish those memories. As a child I can remember holding that candle in my little hand just praying that the little piece of cardboard would catch the melting wax while I sang Silent Night. Churches probably don't even do that anymore because off all the liability and fires!! I have not been able to attend church on Christmas Eve since we have been back in St. Louis due to scheduling, babies, etc. This was the first year that all of my kids could be in the Christmas Pageant at CPC and I could not wait to sign them up. They were excited to be a part and my grandparents and my dad were excited to be able to see them.Emma and Sam sang in the angel choir. Emma was in the center and did a wonderful job smiling and singing. Sam sang a little and yawned a little, it was cute.
Claire had the pageant closing lines which were in a rhyme. She did a FABULOUS job! She had to memorize all the lines and she only did one deep breath followed by a gulp! I only wish I could have got better pics. My camera with the big lens is in the shop. Perfect timing, no camera when you really need one.

After we all got wet getting to our cars we headed back to the house for dinner. Tracy and Chris were already at the house prepping appetizers so we had some munchies because Papa Chas is really hungry by now!! We ended up eating by 7:15 and all 12 of us had a nice sit down meal.

Then the craziness began. It only took 20 minutes for everyone to unwrap everything!

Uncle Chris got jeans. Uncle Chris always gets jeans!

Sam got this neat Darth Vader costume from my grandparents. More photos of this are to come.

Emma got lots of neat artsy things, including glitter. Thanks Aunt Tracy!! You are coming to clean, right?! Claire got fuzzy boots and some ipod accessories she really wanted. They also got lots of games, moola and Sam got a NERF over the door basketball hoop. This was quite a hit.

After presents we had pie, coffee, watched "The Mentalist", watched Scott wash dishes and chatted with family and my friend Erica who joined us for the evening since her fam is out of town. Everyone headed home and my grandparents headed to our guest room! We finally got the kids to bed about 10:30 pm. We completed our Santa duties, finished up breakfast casserole for the morning and CRASHED. ZZZZZzzzzzzzz.

I missed my Aunt's house, but I feel like it was still a very merry Christmas Eve. I hope the Christmas Pageant can become our new tradition. It was a great start to the evening and I think it did change our focus to the Christ child, born in Bethlehem, laid in a manger, for us. He came to die, for us. That is all we need.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!