Most Wonderful Night of the Year!

The night before Christmas has been one of my favorite holidays since my sister and I stopped believing in Santa.  Growing up we saw it as a day filled with cleaning and cooking and exciting preparations for the big family gathering we would have later that night.  It was always a great night filled with singing at church, lots of family with stories and laughter at dinner, and lots of great food.  I loved it because that night was all about the celebration with family.  Some of my favorite memories of Christmas stem from those nights.

As the years have passed our tradition on Christmas Eve has changed a little.  We now have my parents and sister and our beloved Kammy to our house with everyone sleeping over to watch for Santa's arrival.  Having our own children to add to the celebration have changed the thrill of this day in ways I could not have dreamed.  Although our tradition has changed over the years, the excitement and anticipation for Christmas Eve remains the same!

This year's Christmas Eve continued in the spirit of the preceding years and was a blur of cleaning and cooking and last minute preparations.  Trey woke up super excited to put the baby Jesus in the manger and anxiously waited all day until after church to put the little baby Jesus in his little bed.

We had a great time eating and drinking and laughing around the dinner table that night.

After dinner Trey donned his jammies and sprinkled his magic reindeer food on the front walk for Santa's fliers.

He wrote his list, put out Santa's milk & cookies, read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and headed to bed where I'm positive he had dreams of sugarplums dancing in his head.

After all the kids were in bed we saw Santa arrive and carefully place all the presents under the tree with care.  Then we stayed up entirely too late playing games without thinking that the boys would be up before the sun rose...oh well!  It was another Christmas Eve to remember!