Christmas Eve Traditions

I woke up on Christmas Eve one kiddo short.  Grandma had snuck in on Christmas eve-eve and stole my eldest for the evening.  I pleaded with him that he not go, but there was no way he was turning down a sleep over with the grandest of Grandmas.  I made them both promise that he would be back by  1:00 at the latest.  I've never been without my Jack on Christmas Eve and there was no way I was going to let that tradition get started.

So I started Christmas Eve this year with just my girls.  We didn't waste anytime getting busy on our Gingerbread tradition.  When I spotted men at the store I decided to give it a whirl and forgo the houses this year.  I can assure you that will not happen again.

I removed the poor Gingerbread guys from the packaging only to find dismembered heads and legs. We did our best to "glue" them back with icing.  Luckily, the girls hardly cared, but I was disappointed.

I suppose the dismemberment made the tasting all that much easier.

When Jack returned {a whole hour late}, Lu was tucked in for her nap.  Clay and I used this opportune time to give the bigs their gifts from us.  After much debate, we let Santa know that this year we would be giving Jack his big gift...a mini ipad.  With all the rules, regulations, and restrictions we plan to enforce we figured this was best.

Needless to say, Jack was elated.

Maggie didn't do so bad either. After spotting one of Jill's Steals and Deals on the Today show, I just couldn't pass up an American Girl Doll.  I had all intentions of giving this another year or two {regardless of her insistent asking}, but that deal sucked me right in.  So Maggie is officially the owner of her very first AG doll.  And as her brother was, she was elated too.

We even have reservations to take "Isabelle" to the Cafe next week!

After our gift exchange, Jack took a break from his coveted new screen and got busy on his Christmas Eve tradition.  Intent and a perfecting every detail as usual.

We soon shed our pjs and donned our finest Christmas attire for Christmas Eve Mass.  I gathered my trio around the tree {now that we were all reunited} for a few very fast pictures.  We have learned just arriving on time to Christmas Mass does not cut it.

And sadly we didn't have an extra set of hands this year to capture a Christmas photo of all of us.  Everyone was still heading into town, so we did the best we could.  Me and the kiddos.

And after writing this post, I'm starting to realize our Christmas Eve was much like our Gingerbread men....something missing or unattached throughout the entire day.  Hmmm...?!?!  Even with all that, I must admit, is was a wonderful day before the big day!

We ended it with dinner at Grandma's and way too many gifts for the kiddos.  We came home, left cookies for Santa, tracked his where abouts and dressed up in our Christmas jammies.

All the while dreaming of Christmas Day which was only hours away....