Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was on a Sabbath this year, so we were able to wear our Christmas finest to church on Christmas Eve!

My gorgeous family!
(Where am I you ask?  Our elderly dog decided the week before Christmas was the PERFECT time to get a stomach bug AND that instead of her usual Christmas gift, she'd like a trip to the Vet on Dec 24. So...after Jeremy and I took turns being up all night with her, I didn't get to get all dressed up and go to church and wish all of our friends a Very Merry Christmas.  Instead, I threw on jeans and a sweater and took her to get a shot and some pills.  On the upside, she felt much better pretty quickly so even the weekend holiday rates seemed worth it.  I can't believe I think that!  Must love the stinking thing!)

What a sweet picture!
I love that my kids love their Grandma!

Since we were going to our friends house for Christmas dinner, we had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve.  (How else do you get all those yummy leftovers for the week?)  After dinner, we decorated gingerbread houses.

We cheated a bit this year and instead of doing our normal hot gluing of graham crackers, we just used the prepackaged gingerbread kits with a few added on candies.

The kids had lots of fun with them.
I forgot pretzel sticks, so they used matchsticks for arms for the snowmen (and snow hedgehogs!)

After the gingerbread houses, we chose cookies for Santa and celery for the Reindeer.

Poor Marshall was so eager to not get caught being up late by Santa that he was literally BEGGING to go to bed!  We put out our snacks and did a quick check of NORAD, with Marshall making us promise each video would be our last and then off to bed they went!  Grandma said she's never seen a child so eager to go to bed before!

After ushering the kidlets off to bed, we sat down to enjoy cookies, hot chocolate and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  What an exciting day!