Christmas Eve

Ready for the fun of Christmas Eve

Message to Santa.

Cookies and apples for Santa.

The girls.

Opening gifts.

Sammie and Lauren ready for bed.

Lauren and I are pretty lucky that we have a lot of family that live by us and that we are all able to celebrate Christmas together. A few years we decided that we would go to each other's homes for different meals on Christmas eve and Christmas day. So, Christmas Eve night is spent at Janine and Don's home. This year we went to their home and had dinner and opened one gift and then we went to church. After church we come home and this year we tried something new that was really fun. We each brought a "funny" gift and had a gift exchange. We all had a great time playing it and Brian and Diane brought the best gifts. We will all be ready for next year!!! It was a fun game to play. We then opened one more gift and were done for the night. It was such a nice night and it is always nice to have the family together.

Before we had gone over to Janine's house, Lauren put out cookies and apples for Santa. I found this really cute cup/plate set that allows Lauren to write a note on the cup to Santa. She did such a good job, I don't want to wash it off for next year. I might just keep it for years to come.

At the end of the night Lauren changed into her Christmas pjs and was ready for bed. Lauren was so excited for Santa to come. I remember being so excited when I was her age. She got up at 4:00am and came into my room to let me know that Santa had come. I made her go back to sleep but every 30 minutes she was asking if she could get up.