Twas The Night Before Christmas

Putting out the Reindeer food before bed

Singing Jingle Bells by the fireplace

The boys favorite part of Christmas Eve dinner - the ho rs devours. Especially those that could be picked up with toothpicks!

Christmas cuddles from Mr. Jim

Last year we decided that we would no longer travel on Christmas. We wanted to start our own traditions here at home and allow Cole and Lily to enjoy the day in a relaxed way. Normally we spend Christmas with Rhonald's parents but his mom had to work and so they could not come up until the day after Christmas. We really wanted to make a traditional Christmas dinner so we invited Jim and Em and Ben over to share it with us. It was so much fun to catch up with them (Emily is pregnant and was not feeling so hot during her first trimester) and share the holiday with them. It was a lot of fun to see Cole and Ben play and take it all in....in their own way. During nap time Santa dropped off a few early presents for the boys and both of the babies (both born and unborn) and the boys loved that! I had decorated the table with traditional holiday "poppers" - one for everyone - however I think it ended up that Cole and Ben each had 3. They had these cute paper crowns in them that the boys wore around the house. They watched a Christmas movie and ran and ran and ran. Luckily Jim and Rhonald were the ones that Cole and Ben wanted to play with so Emily, Lily Kate and I hung out in the living room and talked. After they headed home we quickly sprinkled our reindeer food on the lawn, set out our cookies and milk and read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Cole likes that book so much and even remembered several parts of the poem. The one part that he always laughs like crazy at is when they say that Santa's belly shook like a bowl full of jelly! When I was tucking him that night he was full of questions....what if the reindeer get thirsty-we only left milk for Santa! What if they get lost? What is Santa forgets to fill his stocking? And on and on...until he finally fell fast asleep...