Christmas Eve!!

I absolutely LOVE Christmas time. The spirit of this season warms my heart and rejuvinates my soul. I love the feelings, stories, gifts, giving, service, food, and smiles that happen at this time of year. Our holiday starts on Ambra's bday and lasts for several days. Christmas Eve is one of those. We start with a big special breakfast that morning, play games all day, and end with a program that night.



My pictures are in backwards order here... the children are just about ready for bed, but they needed to sprinkle their reindeer food they made at Ambra's party on our driveway.



Better throw some on the rooftop too!

For our annual Christmas program, we watched the Nativity and then did our own live nativity. We have makeshift costumes and Adam reads this from Luke two and from Matthew. After our reinactment, we share testimonys and sing carols around the tree.

Our little Ariah is our sheep.

I am a wiseman. I come bearing gifts.

My angelic mother!

Mary and Jospeph and our traditional donkey. Josh is so lucky he gets to be that part every year!

For one of our games, we played snowball. This is where you play Christmas carols and you pass around a ball or bean bag. When the music stops, whomever is holding the ball, gets a cotton ball lotioned to their face. There is grumbling in the begining, and outrageous laughter at the end. Funny game. The winner is supposed to be the one with the least amount of cotton, but we couldn't resist letting Ambra be the winner with the most.

We also played the present game. Josh came prepared with a present wrapped a billion times in layers of duck tape, packing tape, and many boxes. Everyone gets 30 seconds to try to open it. The trick... you have to wear oven mitts. The one who succeeds in opening the gift gets to keep it. Ooolala - money was inside the box. THis is Josh's second year running, winning this game. No fair.

Teeth get involved.

We also play the yarn game. We drew names for an inexpensive gift. Everyone gets a ball of yarn, ties it to a starting point and takes it all around the house. Inside, outside, there is no limits. This year it got wound in and around and under the cars outside, upstairs downstairs and all over the place. When many are doing this it gets a bit crazy. You end up having to crawl and hop and weave in and out of the spider web that has now taken over your house. When you are done, you find your start place and wind up the yarn to find your gift hidden at the end. It is way fun. The kids love it!! (Grandma doesn't love this one so much.)

Adam is seranading us with his Motab ensemble.