Christmas Eve

 Hot chocolate, baking, cleaning, shoveling snow (twice!), early morning grocery shopping, Mason (Kent's brother) coming over, children singing Jingle Bells all day, Christmas music listening, cinnamon candle burning.

 We had a fancy Christmas Eve dinner of roast pork, mashed potatoes, homemade bread, broccoli and corn, blackberry raspberry jello salad, and martinellis, of course.

 Making cookies to leave for Santa. We went with the pre-bought dough today.  Had to keep it simple.

We bought a Mickey Mouse tree ornament last week. Nicholas was pretty excited to hang it up.

Kent found a place online that would make a personalized recorded message from Santa.  Nicholas listened to Santa talk just to him, telling him to be good and go to bed so Santa could bring his presents.  Nicholas jumped off of Kent's lap and ran upstairs without even saying a word, tucking himself into bed.  

 I brought him back down, though. We had to get a picture of the cookies we left for Santa!  This picture took about 20 takes, because Nicholas was singing "Jingle Bells" again and would not stop singing or wiggling, and Ellie was stealing cookies off the plate.

Crazy eyes excited!

I took advantage of probably the last year I have before my children are too smart for me to write a thank-you note from Santa in my own handwriting on cards from our kitchen drawer. Santa is pretty easy to explain this year.  

Nicholas believes anything, and he believes it readily and with enthusiasm.

After our dinner we gathered around the piano. Kent read Luke 2 and I tried to show the kids what he was reading with their little Fisher Price nativity set.  

My children have incredibly short attention spans. 

In between verses Ellie would stand up and walk to the window and lick it.  Nicholas would kiss me, roll around on the ground.  Ellie stole the cow and helped it "moo."  

And when we sang "Angels We Have Heard on High," Ellie added an angelic chorus of tinkling on the upper keys of the piano.  

Our Christmas Eve couldn't have been more perfect. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!