Christmas eve goodness

It was a long and fabulous Christmas eve. We cleaned the house to perfection, because Santa does not come to a messy house. We played in the snow at Grandmas and built snowmen while the guys headed out to see Star Wars again. We also decorated sugar cookies with cousins. Also we made salads and wrapped white elephant gifts for the Christmas eve west family party.
When the men returned we headed out.
The party was a blast as usual but as usual I forgot to take pictures.
After the party we headed home we had some down time to relax and watch Its a Wonderful Life, as per our Christmas Eve Tradition, we also ate more of the yummy dinner we had made the day before. After the movie and dinner we went to my parents house in order to have the grand kids do a little nativity and talent show. We got some hilarious videos!
We also did a white elephant gift exchange and grandparents got the grand kids all matching PJ's. So cute! I love the sweetness of them all matching.
We took the kids home and the kids and I decorated cookies and set out everything for Santa, including our cute little Santa mouse, then we read The Night Before Christmas and did our advent activity from the friend, and the Christmas star ornaments.
Then I headed downstairs and Mitchell and I got things moving. We set out all the gifts and filled the stocking just so like I like to do. We wrote a short letter from Santa, we moved the Christmas tree to the center of the room... Christmas music and baking of cinnamon rolls followed in preparation for Christmas morning.
I love setting everything up for Christmas and anticipating the children s faces!
I set all the gifts for other people under the front room tree and in their bedroom under the small blue tree I set up oranges and the Russian nesting dolls, we covered the tree in candy canes.

It was a late night, after I was sure everything was just so, I went to bed. Mitch and his brothers stayed up late playing games.

Christmas Eve

We started Christmas Eve by cleaning because Santa wont come to a dirty house, after the cleaning was almost done my sister Jessica came over and helped me mop my sad looking kitchen floor. Thank you Jessica!

We spent the afternoon at my Grandparents house for the Christmas Party. What good times. I love getting to see family we don't see that often (and seeing the family we do see often) all in one place. We ate delicious food and visited with everyone. Then we had the talent show, I remember the days when I was a participant. This year Grandma asked me to lead everyone is song. I picked Silent Night and shared the story of that song with everyone before we sang the first verse together.   I love that song it always reminds me of the Birth of our Savior. 

After the talent show and singing we all participated in the white Elephant gift exchange, we got a Santa clause pezz dispenser (so awesome). Then grandma and grandpa gave their gifts to everyone one. They are SO generous and Kind. I love them! We left our gifts for them under the tree so they could open them on Christmas.

Then we headed home for our family festivities.

* The remainder of this post was originally posted on my other blog* This is just the part of the post I thought family would want to see, to view the whole thing (if you want) go to the blog listed below:

https://growuphill.wordpress.com/

https://growuphill.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/christmas-eve/

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Our menu was simple this year because we had a big extended family party at 2 in the afternoon so we didn't need a big ham.

Baked chicken

Scalloped potatoes

broiled broccoli

For dessert:

Homemade hot coco (using this mix recipe)  and whipped cream

strawberry ice cream

sugar cookies

I made the table fun for the kids using kid-friendly decor items. I sprinkled around Christmas colored pom poms and used wrapping paper instead of chargers and streamers for the bows on the chairs.

     

I also made these cute snowmen for nameplates!

The evening began with the DIY Christmas poppers/crackers and then dinner. After dinner we read the grateful for notes from the 3 kings jar, read the Christmas story and then we had dessert. We had the candles in our ice cream that I talked about in a previous post and after all the meal was done we sat down to enjoy the rest of our hot coco as we watched one of my favorite movies: Its a Wonderful Life.

What a wonderful day it was!

The kids wore the PJ'S they got from Grandma to bed for Christmas eve.