Christmas Eve

 

For Christmas Eve, we traveled to Bethlehem and learned about Bethlehem at Christmas time.  Then we acted out the nativity story.  We love this tradition.

Then the kids opened their present from Jingle and put on their new jammies.  We cracked open our Christmas crackers and played games.

We also checked our apps to see if we were naughty or nice and to track Santa.

Then it was time to put reindeer food on the lawn and put cookies out for Santa.

We read, "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and sent the kids downstairs for their sleepover while we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and finished wrapping presents.

Christmas Adam Sleepover by the Tree

 Christmas trees are magical.  Every year my kids have wanted to sleep by the tree and my inner child also wants to sleep by the tree so we made it a family sleepover.  We watched, "A Christmas Story" and listened to soft Christmas music as we fell asleep.  Tony and I didn't last all night.  I didn't put a pad on the cot.  But it was still magical.

Christmas Flotilla 2020

 Our neighbors had the fun idea to have a Christmas parade to spread Christmas cheer.  Max and Ryan each took a kayak and Tony and the littles had the pedal boat.  Avi and I watched and took pics from the dock.  It was a lot of fun.  They had Christmas music playing and shouted Merry Christmas as they passed by houses.

Fun With Friends

 

Grinch Night

 

We made Grinch Kebabs and had the following improvisations:

Roast Beast--Rotisserie Chicken

Who Hash--Tator Tots

Who Pudding--Jell-O Pudding Snacks

But it's all good.  Then we watched the Best Grinch movies there are:  the classic cartoon and then the Jim Carrey version.

And then it snowed!

The Polar Express

 Jingle left us tickets to the polar express so we wrapped caramels, watched the Polar Express and then hopped on the Polar Express to see Christmas lights.  We also had to take Grandma to the airport which was sad, but we were glad to get some more Christmas fun in with her before she left.

Christmas Baking

Grandma took Max to do his Christmas shopping and the rest of us passed this cute Christmas display to venture to the dog park.  Avi was like the older kid who was kind and playing with all of the little kids.  She was the giant among small dogs.

Then we started our Christmas baking.  We made caramels, peppermint fudge, stainglass cookies and peppermint meltaways.

The kids also did some woodworking and Evelyn found a crazy filter on my phone and got a photo of her friend.