Christmas Eve - In Pictures

We started the day off baking. We had to frost the Christmas cake, make the breakfast casserole and bake sugar cake and bread.



Then we spread our reindeer food to get ready for Santa to come. We forgot to put out cookies for Santa, but luckily the kids didn't notice.




We went to church. Rehm was a wise person along with two of his good friends, Will and Lael. They, along with other children helped tell the Christmas story during the service. Every time "wise men" were mentioned in the story they lead part of the congregation in saying "follow that star." At one point the gifts of the wise men were mentioned by name. Apparently they were supposed to hold up their gift when it was mentioned. Rehm's was mentioned first. He held it up promtly. As soon as his friend Will's was mentioned Rehm elbowed him in the back (he was standing behind him) so hard that he almost lost his balance and fell and of course was distracted by my son and thus a little late holding up his gift. Lael also got similar treatment from my dear son. It is a wonder they put up with him.

After the service we had a live nativity complete with petting zoo. It was nice and cold (40ish) which was nice for making it feel like Christmas but not so nice for standing outside for an hour.





Since the girls were all shepherds for the live nativity we forewent Christmas clothes and all went in jeans and warm shirts. It was so nice to not have to do the elaborate costume change mid day that is Christmas clothing. Maybe I can convince them to do this again next year.

For their shepherd costumes I bough the cheapest king size pillowcases I could find. I cut head and arm holes and then cut them off to an appropriate length. I also purchased contrasting colored cloth napkins to use as their head pieces and tied those on with the scraps from the hems of the pillowcases. It took all of 10 minutes to make the costumes and required no sewing.

After church we celebrated Jesus' birthday with dear friends. This is one of my absolute favorite Christmas traditions. The kids have a blast and so do their parents.








After the party we came home and put all the tired kids to bed and prepared for Santa to come.