Christmas Eve

I had been looking forward to this day for a LONG time.  I have always loved the magic of Christmas, and church on Christmas Eve is one of my absolute favorite things every year.  I was so excited to have our sweet baby girl to celebrate with this year.

John worked during the day, and I just cleaned up around the house, and got some of the food ready for tomorrow.  When John got home, I was still trying to get some things done, and his parents were on their way over.  I got Kinley bathed and took a shower myself.  We kind of ran out of time for dinner, so John ran out and got something from a drive-thru.  How festive!  We visited with his parents, while also trying to get ready for church.  We have always done the late 11:00 service, but I didn't think that was the best idea with Kinley.  So, we decided on the 8:00 service instead.  I figured Kinley might be getting a little tired by the end, but she should be able to make it ok.

The church service was great, and PACKED!  We definitely should have left home earlier.  We barely even got seats together.  Kinley did pretty well.  Not too much of her jubilant screaming!  After church we headed home quickly to get on Skype with Gramps and Gran. 

I realized on our way to church that in all of my madness of the day, I had made a rookie mom error . . . we didn't bake cookies for Santa.  I had made fudge, so I was just going to leave some of that, but John ran to CVS real quick and bought a cheap package.  We got Kinley in her pajamas and put our special Santa key on the front door.  We don't have a chimney, so Gramps and Gran made sure we got a special key to hang on the front door for Santa to use to get in our house.

Then, we put out some cookies and milk for Santa.  I wrote a note to Santa for Kinley and I put her on the table to get a cute picture of her with her Santa note and the cookies and milk.  Kinley had something else in mind, though.

She grabbed one cookie and helped herself.  They were cheap cookies, so they pretty much crumbled everywhere.  She had no problem helping herself to the other one, either.  Overall, I don't think she really got that much in her mouth, but it sure was funny to watch!

After we got her cleaned up and changed pajamas, we sat down to read The Night Before Christmas.  This was always our Christmas eve tradition when I was growing up.  We all sat on the couch and my dad read the story to us.  It's something that I remember fondly, and knew I always wanted to do with my kids, too.  I was mad at myself, because I have 2 copies of the book at school and I set one aside to bring home and I completely forgot.  So, I downloaded a version on my Nook, but it was missing some of the story.  I figure she won't remember, and next year, we'll do better.

After we put Kinley down, John and I popped The Polar Express in the Blu-Ray player and sat down to wrap gifts.  I know all the "with-it" moms have everything wrapped weeks ahead of time, but I really enjoyed spending that time with John.  Once we were finished, and had everything under the tree, we headed to bed ourselves.  It was a great day and night, and I look forward to the years to come!