Christmas Eve

This year I decided to spend Christmas Eve with my family. This year was supposed to be my parents' turn to have Christmas Eve at their house, but because Brandon is working in Seattle and Kelsey is living with my parents, the Muir family opted to spend Christmas in Rexburg to make things easier. So my parents and Jake decided to come down to Farr West and spend Christmas and Tyra and Brock's house. Since Colton and I aren't married yet, I thought it would be best to take advantage of the chance to spend the night with my family too.

Everyone rolled into town around 4pm and after a last minute run to Lee's Marketplace, I arrived at Tyra's house to find French dip sandwiches, green salad, lime jello salad, Peppermint Trifle (yum yum yum), and lots of pistachios, m&m's, and pumpkin bread. After binging on all the delicious food, we bundled everyone up and took off around the neighborhood to carol to the neighbors while Karlee rang each doorbell and delivered some pumpkin bread to them and play dough to her "friends". The carolling was fun although it wasn't exactly what Brock had been hoping for. He had been planning this particular event all month long and was really disappointed when my dad decided not to bring down the trailer that Brock had been planning on lighting up and having us all sit on as we drove around singing. Brock even bought a special Santa Clause hat with a Philadelphia Eagles emblem embroidered on it. Not to mention the hours and hours that Brock, Ty, and myself spent rehearsing the previous night on the XBOX--we didn't go to bed until 2am because we spent all night watching Tyra make the mousse for the trifle while we took turns singing to songs on their Karaoke game. Brock was so insistent and exciting for this carolling expedition that Tyra bought him a Music Maker harp with a bunch of music to take with us. Too bad the music that came with it didn't fit the harp!!

After we got back from our singing gala, we read Luke 2 to the kids and acted out the story for them with their Little People nativity set. Grandma read the Night Before Christmas to the kids and we even saw an elf outside the kitchen window, which actually ended up terrifying both Karlee and Kade! Then we sang some songs around the piano and put the kiddies to bed. After making sure that the presents we'd brought for each other were wrapped and put in the right spot, everyone all went to bed while Jake and I watched The Christmas Story.

Karlee and Kade finally (I say finally because a 6am start on Christmas morning when I was little was actually a very late start!) woke up around 8am and then the chaos began. The kids were more interested in the fruit snacks that Santa left in their stockings than they were in any presents! But the houses that Tyra painted for the kids were a huge hit and so was the cell phone that I gave to Kade.

We had a yummy breakfast and then tried to get things organized and loaded up so that we could all go home. It was storming again and it was snowing and blowing hard, so everyone was anxious about the roads. And my age is really starting to show because I've found that I get worried about shoveling my driveway before the snow gets packed down or it gets icy. Ridiculous. I never thought I'd turn into one of those people. Needless to say, the Williamsons did a fabulous job of hosting on Christmas Eve 2008. And as we all drove out of site, Brock was busy building a 14 foot snowman!! Wonder what next year will be like???