Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a historic one this year. This was the very first Christmas Eve dinner at my house. Every year since I was born we have always celebrated Christmas Eve at my grandma's house. As our family and extended family gets bigger my grandma's house seems to get smaller and smaller so we decided to try it at my house this year. Now, my house is not much bigger than my grandma's house but I do have two rooms that the children would like a little bit, a "Car's" room for the boys and a "Girly" room for the girls aka our kids bedrooms.

We did keep the tradition of my grandma making her annual chili and everyone else brought in various side items and desserts.

 Like I said my house is not very big so in order to accommodate the 18+ people we had tables set up EVERYWHERE

There was the kitchen table of course, then one in the living room and one in the kids room

 Ayden was such a big boy helping me set up the kids table

It worked out great because usually half the family migrates into the living room while the kids play somewhere and the rest stay at the kitchen table so all I did is gave them tables to sit at while they did their normal thing :)

 

 

I also had some activities set up for the kids to do. 

They were able to dress a snowman if they wanted.

I can remember as a little girl wishing that the grown ups would hurry and wash the dishes so we could open presents already so we opened gifts as soon as everyone was done eating and saved clean up for later!

 This year Logan wasn't the baby anymore

 baby Sebastian was the littlest one

 Abby always has the most sweetest smiles

 It was nice having "Santa" pay a visit

 "Uncle Tommy" has been friends with my brother Shawn for many years so he's like part of the family and comes to Christmas too

 Everyone was anxious to see what Grandma had got for everyone

The girls got dolls and Barbies

 The boys got trucks and cars

 All the guys got shirts

 Joey got his chocolate covered cherries that he has received every year since we started dating.

(He always acts surprised though :)

 This year my grandma did a little something extra. She went through all of her Christmas ornaments and gave everyone a symbolic ornament from her tree.

 Eric got a little Coke Cola bear (He works for Coke)

After everything was cleaned up Jennifer (my sister n law), myself and the all the kids made up Magic Reindeer Dust to spread out for the reindeer that would be visiting in just a few hours!

 First all the ingredients were added to the bowl

 Each child had a special ingredient

 Brock decided that his Reindeer should do the stiring of the mix since it was for reindeer

 Then we headed outside to sprinkle it on the lawn!

 

It was nice having the whole family over. 

This year our family grew with a new brother in law (Chris) and a new baby (Sebastian), we laughed more than we did last year and made some new memories. 

 

 

 It was a great Christmas Eve.