Christmas Eve

After baking all day, we made probably 5 dozen cookies! We used Grandma Wilson's recipes, so everything was homemade, even the frosting. My mom and I made a great team! We always made sugar cookies together when I was a kid, so I was so happy to do it again including Evie in the tradition. When we were decorating cookies, my dad read the letter Aunt Sharon wrote about Grandma's Christmas cookies (in our family cookbook). Grandma and Aunt Jane would diligently bake dozens of assorted cookies in preparation to send them to Florida. The night before setting out for the 24 hour drive from New York to Florida, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Denny would make the hour drive to Grandma's to pick up the cookies that were wrapped meticulously between wax paper (saved from cereal boxes).  During the long drive down, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Denny would only let my cousin, Shanda, eat the broken cookies! Torture! Sending cookies was Grandma's way of being with us!

The finished products, sugar cookies and peanut blossoms

For Christmas, I really wanted to make a gingerbread house with Evie. While she was napping my mom, dad, and I assembled the house to make sure it would stand. It took all three of us to accomplish this. We mixed the frosting to the consistency of toothpaste, maybe even thicker. At first we had problems squeezing it out of the pastry tube. It definitely took a lot of muscle and a steady hand. Once the house was together, we let Evie decorate the roof with us. She quickly, pretty much instantly, realized the house was edible. She eagerly would place a piece candy on the roof and just as quickly, take the candy off to eat it. Since she is not used to sweets, (the day before she threw up frosting she licked off of a cookie) we rationed the amount of candy she could eat. Judd quickly redirected her to another activity since all she wanted to do was eat candy off of the gingerbread house! To "even out" the sweets, we let her eat a whole banana afterwards!

Grabbing a piece of candy

hmmm....this is spicy

Momma, let me help you!

All finished!

Eating a banana, a much healthier snack than candy!

It has become a tradition of our family to go to the Christmas Eve service. It's so exciting to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas and take time to give praise and thanksgiving for the Lord's precious gift to the world. This year we attended the kid's service where Pastor reads the story of Jesus' birth from the Bible. With each verse, a character is invited on stage to create a real life manger scene involving Mary, Joseph, the angel, wise men/ kings, and shepards. In between each verse, we sing a Christmas carol. By the end, all the kids (and some parents) are on stage! It was really cute and a great way for kids to learn the Christmas Story.

Wishing daddy good luck before he goes on stage

Dane and Daddy playing Christmas carols

Evie, the angel

All angels on stage!

Pretty much the entire time Evie was eyeing her daddy, saying his name and smiling huge! I had to hold on to her really tight, so she wouldn't run to her daddy!!

She also intently observed Pastor Richard, since he was right behind us in the rocking chair.

Finally! I can be with my daddy!

To end the night, we set cookies by the fireplace for Santa. We left a couple of carrots too, so Santa could have a healthy snack...or feed them to his reindeer if he didn't want them. :o)