Christmas Eve!

Well today was Christmas Eve, and it was the first one we spent away from our families. Here is what our families' traditions are for Christmas Eve.

My family starts off the day eating monkey bread. My mom makes it either Christmas Eve morning or Christmas day morning (depending on when she has the most people at her house to eat it!) Then we meet the rest of my mother's family at my aunt's house for a big family get together. When I say big, I mean B-I-G. And we LOVE it!!! Today, there were 48 members of my mom's family present at the Christmas Eve Extravaganza as some of us like to call it. The funny thing is that there were 19 members of the family not able to make it, including us. My family is pretty much the poster child of procreation. At our gathering, we eat yummy food (sweets and finger foods), talk A LOT, and then do a really fun white elephant gift exchange. The girls exchange gifts and the boys exchange gifts. (You can only imagine what doing an exchange with 50+ people is like...CRAZY! But so much fun.) Somewhere in between all the busyness, my immediate family tries to spend as much time together as we can, especially so all the cousins can play together. This year, all the cousins skyped together instead!

In past years, we have left the Christmas Eve Extravaganza and driven straight to Charlotte to join in Ian's mom and stepdad's Christmas Eve tradition. For 10+ years (maybe more?) they have gone to a Japanese restaurant called Nakato's (one of those cook at your table Japanese restaurants...my favorite!) We all have so much fun sitting around the table talking and catching up with one another! I can only imagine how Cayman would have reacted to all the fire and knives flying (etc. etc) not to mention playing with his cousins - especially Ryan since they're so close in age! Either before or after Nakato's, we'll get together with Ian's siblings and their families to retell the Christmas story and exchange gifts. I LOVE this part!

Then usually on Christmas day, we'll head over to Ian's dad's house at some point in time to do all kinds of special things with them and Ian's brother's family! We exchange gifts. We take pictures. Lots of pictures! We have a nice dinner together. We usually end up playing games - Scattergories, Uno, Wii, etc. We have so much fun together! Cayman loves getting to play with all of his cousins here too!

As you can see, our Christmas season is usually very busy! We love every minute of it too! We cherish any time (whether long or short) we get to spend with our family.

This year, as you very well may know, was totally different! But just as great!

We are having a great time making Florida memories this Christmas. We went out for a nice Italian dinner this evening. The kids were a little loud and crazy. Charis ate THE ENTIRE TIME. She's got the wild waving arms whenever she's begging for food - just like Cayman used to have when he was her age! It is so funny to watch! She ate cheerios, bread, applesauce, and some kind of veggies. Cayman was a little irritable, so he screamed a couple of times, and made these old ladies sitting at the table beside ours jump out of their seats due to his high pitched squeal! (If I hadn't been annoyed with him for pitching a fit, I definitely would have laughed out loud at those old ladies!)

After dinner, Ian drove us to go see the lights at that house again. Apparently everyone in Cape Coral AND Fort Myers watched our video on Facebook and saw how neat this light show was. It was packed! We didn't want to get out of the van this time because the kids weren't dressed for cooler weather. So we got in this long line that stretched all the way down the street. The line hardly moved. Just before we decided it was time to turn around and head back home, this mini van tried to fit in between our van and a car that had parked on the side of the road, and THEY HIT OUR SIDE MIRROR! AND JUST ZOOMED ON OFF! Ian and I were so shocked because they did not even stop; they just acted like nothing had happened. It was crazy. We were definitely finished after that! We'll go back one night after Christmas once things calm down some.

When we got home, we put the kiddos to bed. We made sure to tell Cayman that when he wakes up in the morning he gets to open all his presents under the tree. He seemed excited. Ian and I have been shocked at how little interest he's had to those presents. They've been under the tree for a good 2 weeks now. Even after opening presents with Kyle and Jenn, he hasn't shown much interest in opening those presents. But tomorrow, I bet he's going to have to open everyone's gifts! He's going to have so much fun. And Charis will just enjoy eating all the paper!

Once the kids were asleep, Ian and I got to work on our first ever gingerbread house! I must say, for our first time, it looks great! We had so much fun, but we both agreed that due to our perfectionist tendencies, we are very glad that we didn't let Cayman help us this time! Cayman definitely would have had to have his own gingerbread house...I highly doubt any of the candy would have made it on the house though! Ian and I had a great time though, and I definitely want to do that again each Christmas. It was a special activity for just the two of us to do together!

We are so thankful to have each of you in our lives! Thanks for keeping up with our lives through this blog. We hope that you and your family experience the peace and love that our Lord offers you and that joy overwhelms you this holiday season!

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

[slideshow]