Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite nights of the year,especially now that I have Sam and Ben.  I love the anticipation of Santa's arrival, listening to their questions and seeing the excitement in their eyes.  

  

We slept in on Christmas Eve morning and ate Sam's favorite breakfast....cinnamon rolls as we watched, "Its a Charlie Brown Christmas."  The boys liked it, but not as much as they loved watching the Polar Express.  We then baked sugar cookies and got everything ready for Santa's arrival.  

 We went to Paducah to Aunt Ann and Uncle Buddy's house.  It is a tradition to bring appetizers to snack on after going to church for family communion time and a prayer to help us stay focused on the real meaning of Christmas.  

After church, we ate and played cards while the boys opened their gifts and played with their new toys.  The hit of the night was an old fashioned metal slinky.  Sam and Ben spent a lot of time trying to get it to go down the basement steps.  They took breaks every once in a while to track Santa on the tv and to play with some of their other toys. 

 Every year, we take a family picture and with a 3 and 5 year old, I was very pleased with this picture!  Both boys actually looked at the camera and gave a cute smile. 

We stayed pretty late, but we raced home to get in bed before Santa came.  Ben and Sam noticed every red light blinking in the sky and asked if it was Rudolph's nose.  Oh, what I would give to be a child again!