Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning was well spent. I invited some friends to go with us to an Assisted Living place and share some music with the residents. A few days before I was wishing we weren't doing it, just because we'd been so busy, but I'm SO glad I had planned it ahead of time and that we did it. It was really special. I asked friends whose kids played the piano, so all the kids played a piano song and then I played for us all to sing a few songs all together. It was so fun! We spent awhile after visiting with the residents and bringing Grace around for them to ooh and ahh at (they love babies!). It was really sweet and again got us thinking about someone other than ourselves. Several of my friends said they loved it and we should make it a Christmas Eve tradition. I agree!

I'm so sad I didn't take a single picture, but oh well. That's not the important thing. After that we came home and enjoyed a rather unusual Christmas Eve. It was just us and we weren't even having any people over. I tried! But everyone we invited or asked already had plans, and nobody invited us (cue the violins, I know). Since this was the case, we decided to ditch tradition and have lasagna for dinner! We asked the kids what they wanted and this was the meal that won out. It was great! After lunch, Jeremy and the boys played legos in the basement, Grace took a nap, and I turned on White Christmas to watch while I made the lasagna. Anna flitted in and out and danced along to the music and it was very relaxed. We tried to make it special with doing a nice table, but it felt a little like any other night at dinner with four kids - a little crazy. Luckily everyone loved the food so there were no complaints there. :)
 

After dinner we cleaned up and got ready for our traditional nativity acting out. I ended up putting Grace to bed before we did it, so she missed out, but that's probably for the best. Thanks to the idea from President Eyring in the Christmas Devotional, we decided to add Samuel the Lamanite this year and it was great! The kids especially loved the "throwing stones and arrows at him" part.

 Connor played a very convincing Samuel and Anna and Eli did their best to miss him with their aluminum foil stones.

  I played the angel appearing to Mary and later to the shepherds, and Anna played her usual Mary.

 Eli was Joseph and later a wiseman and Connor was also a shepherd and later a wiseman too (he was busy). Jeremy played a donkey, shepherd and wiseman as well.

 And of course we can't forget Orangey (Connor's bear) who played the part of the sheep. Very well done, if I might add.

We finished up the night with delicious dessert (Double Chocolate Torte - yes please!, along with an array of Christmas cookies and candies) and then got the kids to bed so we could prep for the morning!

We let them all sleep in the same room so they were pretty excited. I don't think I heard a peep though, they were pretty worn out and convinced they wouldn't get presents if they didn't go to sleep!