Christmas Eve

Living away from family puts a little more pressure on me if I want my children to have holiday traditions that are different than just any normal day.  Most holidays are easy because the holiday itself is special - but Christmas eve is hard.  In my family growing up Christmas eve was full of more traditions than Christmas and I want that to be the same for my kids.  But when there isn't anything in particular to "do" - I have to get creative. 

Christmas Eve morning packages started arriving from Utah.  The kids are always so excited to get presents fro their grandparents and aunts and uncles and put them under the tree.

We worked on a 1000 piece puzzle all Christmas week long.  It was hard - a little too hard.  They were all "in it" for the first day or 2... then it was just Brock and Jason who worked on it... then it was just Jason.  But everyone loved having it, loved the idea of it. and were excited when it was finished!

We made, cut out, and frosted Christmas sugar cookies.  cutting out sugar cookies with 4 young kids is hard and a lot of crazy work - I try hard to be prepared for success!  But it definitely takes 2 of us. (when they were younger it took more than 2 and we couldn't do it unless we invited other adults to help)

Then we frosted.

Last we we started a tradition of having a sea food buffet for Christmas Eve dinner. 

I made shrimp scampi from scratch this year.  It was pretty good if I say so myself.

And then there is this...  my heart of hearts!  My extended family dances around the Christmas tree ever Christmas eve.  And not just my extended family, but we have done it for generations and many other families off our family tree still do it.  Almost all people who marry into our family hate it and only marginally humor us as we dance around the tree - and usually opt to take pictures rather than dance - my husband definitely fell into this category.  When we moved to Denver I honestly think on his "pro" list was "never have to dance around the Christmas tree".  Well this year I came to him and told him how much it would mean to me if we started/continued the tradition of dancing around the Christmas tree with our own children.  People... this is true love.

It made my heart sore!

And then I asked Brock to take a picture of Jason and I in front of the tree.  Here is what we got.

And then we ended our night with the Muppets Christmas Carol.  It may have been a perfect Christmas Eve.