Christmas Eve Will Find Me...

We got together with the Rogers on the 23rd again, where the kids entertained us with Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, and The Reindeer Twist. Maisie got to wear the bright red nose. We also ate our customary cinnamon rolls, and delivered our special surprise packages to people in need. It was a noisy but fun evening.

Christmas Eve was lovely this year. We had a ton of great food at the Baylys get together in the morning, and it was so laid back and relaxed. The best kind of party. Then we headed home and hung out for a short while before dinner, and which point we had a special visitor!

The kids were very excited to see that Santa made a special stop to bring them a little extra present and some treats, and to remind them to be good. Shortly after Santa left, so did we, to patrol the neighborhood. Our stake had handed out luminaries, ten per family, to decorate your porch with, in an effort to further Light the World. Unfortunately, we had quite a lot of rain that night. Yes, rain. In December. In Utah. You could see that a lot of people had made an effort to light theirs, only to have the rain disintegrate the bags. But our kids still had fun pointing out houses where they could see them, and it was a nice thought to unify the neighborhood.

Neither Teag or I felt like cooking, so we drove to Cafe Rio, which was thankfully open. I think that may become a new Christmas Eve tradition! We got our food to go, then went home and watched The Santa Clause with our kids, a movie they'd never seen before. We also opened up the last few envelopes from Grandma and Grandpa's reindeer advent, one of which gave the kids some reindeer food to spread on the lawn for Santa's reindeer to eat, and another one that completed the reindeer we'd been making for more than a week. Rudolph finally had his glowing nose.

After that we listened to the Polar Express, and finished the evening off with the Luke 2 bible video. Teag and I continued our personal Christmas Eve tradition of watching The Christmas Carol Doctor Who special. Yeah, cuz we're nerds like that. And here's a picture of our tree, in all it's tree glory. A fitting way to honor such a lovely specimen that graced our home for a short while.