Christmas!

Christmas Eve finally came! My day was pretty busy. I had choir practice at 9am which lasted for about 2 hours with a brunch afterward... I don't think any of us meant for it to go on that long, but we REALLY needed practice with our songs for Christmas morning, and no one really complained, so we just kept on going until we were hungry!

By the time I got home I had about 4 1/2 hrs to get everything in order for our Christmas traditions to start. I made my corn chowder, made french toast bake for the morning, and had Hayden help me make some yummy cookies for Santa. I finished wrapping presents, got the kids looking cute for pictures, prepped everything for Christmas morning, church, etc, and got the presents under the tree. Phew... we were ready to go!

We had a simple meal by candlelight dinner with Christmas music in the background. After dinner we opened our very last Christmas story countdown, and to Hayden's delight, it wasn't a book, but a video about Jesus with 'O Holy Night' playing it the background. While the movie played we talked about the first Christmas and why Jesus is the greatest gift of all. I was very impressed with how well Hayden listened and stayed calm (this didn't last long, but at least we got through the spiritual part!).

As usual, Hayden was super excited to get to hand out the presents. We decided to stick to our plan of only 4 gifts from Mom and Dad this year, but then as the gifts from grandparents started stacking up and as I got lazy with the home-made gifts, we decided to not even do four. Our kids have so much and they still had plenty to open. We had a lot of fun opening presents. Ginny's favorite gift was her doll stroller from Plain Grandma and Grandpa Neill. Hayden's favorite was his giant Lego head to organize his Legos with (also from Plain G&G Neill). Dirk's favorite gift was his new flat iron he uses for cooking... I surprised him with this gift and he just admitted to me it is ranked higher than his other two gifts, the Skyrim video game and the Star Wars Chronicles book I got him! My favorite gift was from my Mom who put our family home videos on to DVD's for us!

After gifts Hayden and I put out the plate of cookies and chocolate milk for Santa, then we went outside to sprinkle our reindeer food, made up of oats and glitter! It was really magical watching Hayden sprinkle it all over the sidewalk. I thought he would just clump it up and dump it, but he was so methodical about it, spreading it nice and even, putting lots of thought in to it. He really wanted to make sure Rudolph could find the way to our house! It was adorable and definitely a tradition we will continue.

Shortly after the kids went to bed our doorbell rang. We opened the door to find a big box of wrapped gifts just sitting there! It was such a wonderful feeling to know that someone was thinking of us enough to do this! As we put the gifts under the tree we realized it tripled what we had for Christmas morning from Santa! We did our Santa duties, ate all Santa's cookies (and then some), dumped the chocolate milk in the sink (Hayden made it and it was WAY too chocolaty) and went to bed with our hearts filled with the love that someone left on our doorstep.

Christmas morning was pretty nice. Hayden was quiet and well behaved (I think he was really nervous Santa hadn't come). We opened all our presents and found such wonderful surprises from our Super Secret Santa! This Star Wars Millennium Falcon flier was a HUGE hit! Hayden and Ginny dug right in to their candy before we could stop them, which was a big mistake! We ate our yummy french toast bake (will DEFINITELY be making that again) and off to church we went.

Hayden's expression opening his new Razr Scooter! He was sooo excited!! 

I was singing in the choir, so after all the business part of church I left the two VERY hyper and candy filled children with Dirk on the back row while I sat up with the Choir. Dirk's version of church was painful, obnoxious, loud, hyper, exhausting, etc... and surprisingly, NOT because of Hayden, but because of Ginny! Never again will that girl be given candy and presents before Church! My version of Church was wonderful and filled with the spirit of Christ. We sang five songs, but I was crying by the end of the second. The spirit was so strong. The speakers in between songs were just enough to share the Christmas message and invite the spirit, but not too long. Every single person in that church I made eye contact with looked guilty of being our Secret Santa! It's such a sweet feeling knowing somebody cares about you, but not knowing who. It really was a great Christmas!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with Love and Happiness. I know we sure did.. and it didn't stop there...