Christmas Eve Festivities

As always, our Christmas Eve was a blast and chock full of holiday fun, bookended by the nativity story (of course!). And, as always, both readings of the Christmas Story were... nontraditional.

We started with our annual tradition of reading the Christmas Story and acting it out with the nativity set that Steve's mom and Dad made Sam for his first Christmas.

This year we mixed things up a bit and Sash opted to read while the other kids acted out their parts. As a direct result, the story was a lot less chaotic and violent than usual, although Ben did his part to keep it exciting, as evidenced by the beans that beanbag Mary started leaking halfway through her ordeal. Poor Mary. And it must be said that Sasha made an excellent narrator.

And we ended with Christmas Eve service at church where Steve and I and several other members of our congregation acted out another entertaining retelling of the Christmas Story. Think Drunk History with kids as narrators instead of tipsy celebrities and the grown-up cast making fools of ourselves and you'll get the gist of it.

It turned out brilliantly! You should totally check out the whole video at https://vimeo.com/149823606

And between our two nativity stories, we had a heck of a day.

As usual, we opened presents on Christmas Eve. We started this tradition a few years ago to

1. make Christmas Day a little less psycho
2. open presents a day early (who can argue with that?), and
3. carve out more time to ski on Christmas Day, because if any day deserves a family ski-fest, it's Christmas

So once we were dressed and nativitied we packed up and headed down the street to Grammy's house for french toast, mimosas, and loads of present opening.

Ben unwraps a case of cream soda from Sasha

I'm so glad Sam hasn't outgrown Legos!

Yep, it was American Girl doll year! Sasha and WanYing were thrilled

We see many tea parties in our future

Ben had only one thing on his list - a new unicycle - and apparently didn't like our ceaseless taunting and fake-outs

But never fear, the unicycle was eventually presented with due ceremony and excitement

It's going to take a little while to master, but he's well on his way!

And then we paused for a glass of wine before dealing with the aftermath

And in the evening, it was off to Christmas Eve service, properly bedecked in Elsa dresses

Acoustic Christmas was appropriately banjo-tastic!

We had a beautiful Christmas Eve, filled with the joys of giving, worship, laughter, and banjo. Just like it should be.