Christmas Eve

Christmas is a time of traditions in our household...some that I have carried on from my childhood and some that we have made together as a family. Our Christmas Eve seems to be one tradition after another...just the way we all like it!

Here's my little elf at Sonny's BBQ, where we have spent every Christmas Eve for the past seven years.

The whole gang--Nanny, Paw Paw, David and Mary Margaret and their three girls, and all of us!
We got home to find that Santa's elves had brought us all new PJ's while we were gone!

A new tradition that we started this year was telling the Christmas Story using some neat story blocks tht Mrs. Conkle gave Hannah for Christmas. Hannah has heard the story of Jesus in Sunday school and from us, but she wasn't quite putting it together with Christmas. She has been so excited about Santa this year, that we wanted to make sure that we included the Christmas story in our celebration.

Then, as Maddy stacked the blocks up in order, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Hannah hung out with Josh in front of the fire for a little while,

...while Charlotte hung out on her play mat. Shortly after this picture was taken, she had a complete meltdown, and we had to take a break from our usual Christmas Eve activities so I could get a very tired, very overstimulated, baby with sore gums and some serious gas issues to go to sleep. It took a while...about 45 minutes...a sort of record in Charlotteworld, as she is so very rarely fussy and usually goes down so easily.

Finally, though, after much walking and rocking and shhhhh-ing, and yes, I admit, praying, she was finally asleep, and we could get to another Stone tradition....watching A Christmas Story.

During which, Josh asked me...and I quote, "Mom, when did you get a TV?" Not sure of what he meant, I asked for clarification, only to realize that he thought I had been alive BEFORE TV was invented!