Christmas Eve Traditions

- December 26, 2014

All the years we lived in Kentucky, sometime during the Christmas season the kiddos were able to make a gingerbread house. They grew to believe that making gingerbread houses was a holiday tradition. When we moved to Arizona the opportunity during the weeks preceding Christmas never presented themselves with an opportunity to make the beloved candy covered houses. So to keep the kiddos happy we decided that during the day on Christmas Eve we would make our beloved houses; a tradition was born - decorating ~~gingerbread~~ graham cracker houses on Christmas Eve.

Each kiddo gets a house of their very own to decorate until their hearts content, or until the candy is gone.

Jacob ate more candy than went on his house. Sarah worked solo this year, needing no help from Mom or Dad. John's, actually resembled a house this year. Rachel told us she tries every year to make hers better than Elizabeth's, but once again she thinks Elizabeth's is the best. And Elizabeth, as usual was the last one sitting at the table creating a real masterpiece!

After dinner on Christmas Eve we have our usual list of things to do: music recital, read & act out Luke 2, take a picture by the tree & head to bed. I got smart this year and changed up the order a bit . . .

First: take the picture by the tree because it gets everyone so wound up that they never go to sleep.

Second: the music recital, this year staring Elizabeth on guitar & Sarah on the piano

Third: Read Luke 2 and remember the true meaning of Christmas

Fourth: Off to bed.

This new order of events was genius!

As usual it took about 20 pictures of these monkey's to get 1 or 2 that were acceptable.

As always our rendition of Luke 2 is more of a comedy than anything. We video it each year and one day, many years from now, I will gladly share them all with my children when they are parents and are wondering how to get their own children to be more reverent.