Christmas Eve 2013

This was going to be the first actual Christmas Eve we were going to spend in our own house.  We had actually never been to the Christmas Eve service at our church so we were excited to be able to share that with our church family.

Peter worked during the day so the boys and I went with Nana and Auntie Amanda to the mall for a little browsing and last minute shopping.  It was a nice low key day, then we came home so the boys could nap and I prepped a few things for the dinner that night.

Peter came home and we all went to the Christmas Eve service.  Our church has a candlelight service and it was a nice evening reflecting on the wonder of Jesus' birth.

After we arrived home that evening we pulled out the dinner that had been prepped earlier.  Growing up our tradition was always to have meats, cheeses, crackers, veggies & dip, and clam chowder.  So I served all that along with some fruit and fruit dip.  It was all pretty yummy.  And we ate the leftovers of all that for several days too which is always nice.

I had already wrapped nearly all of the gifts for the tree and the stockings so there wasn't any last minute things to do.  Peter snuck upstairs and had built the boys a little tent in their room where we could all cuddle in, eat a Christmas goodie and listen to Daddy read the Christmas story.  Of course their attention span is kind of short, but Benjamin especially really understood the real meaning of Christmas and why it is we celebrate on this day.

The boys were in their Christmas jammies and were super excited to go to bed that night knowing that it was finally going to be Christmas morning in the morning........time for presents :-)