Christmas Eve

It is hard to believe that tonight is actually Christmas Eve. All the hours we have spent decorating the house, all the shopping we did to find the perfect gifts for all the friends and family, the traffic we sat in, the parties we attended and held and it all will come to an end within a few hours. Kind of makes me really sad. Tonight we went to the Family Christmas Eve Service at church. It was great, we talked about how we can get caught up in commotion of christmas and easily forget what the real meaning of Christmas is. At dinner tonight as we sat and ate our chinese take out, we sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" and talked about what the real meaning of Christmas is. It made my heart happy that when we asked Blake, he knew that it was Jesus' Birthday.

We are a family that does the whole Santa thing. Before bed each night Blake would take an ornament from his Thomas Calendar to count down to Christmas. He was excited that tonight was the last ornament for his tree. The kids will both get a few gifts from Santa in the morning but the rest are from mom and dad. We leave cookies and milk out for him so that he can have a snack while visiting our house. Blake loves it. So after dinner we talked about what was going to happen tonight. Blake was a little concerned that if we left too many lights on, that Santa would not want to come in and leave his gifts. Both kids were fast asleep, which was good because Nathan and I still had wrapping to do, and packing before we leave tomorrow morning for our trip back home to be with family.

We love this time of year and enjoy watching the kids get so excited about it all too. I wish that in a way, it could be the christmas season all year long. I love the way the house looks and smells, I love buying gifts for people and then watching them open them, I love all the time at home with Nathan and the kids, and I love the extra cookies!!!

We hope that you and your families are able to enjoy this time of year together and can look back and laugh at all the fun things you have gotten to do together. We pray that God will bless you and your family as the New Year draws near. We have been blessed this year with great friends, healthy family and love for each other. We look forward to what the New Year blesses us with.

Merry Christmas To All!!!