Christmas Eve

We stick pretty close to our traditions on Christmas Eve. I remember years ago feeling sad that we didn't have strong traditions, especially with family, on Christmas Eve. But we have fixed that since then! For starters, we still spend the morning with our Buchert friends for breakfast. Sadly, Troy needed to spend a few hours at work this year and wasn't able to join us. I missed his company. Even a couple of the Buchert kids were missing as well - it's just how life is going! Kids grow up and the traditions don't always stay the same. I was very happy to have Chase with us, though, and he made us all laugh a lot. Hearing him belly-laugh over the Buchert's crystal ball and the images it produces was hilarious to me, even more than the crystal ball. I'll include a few of the photos here, though not many, as they are truly horrifying.

You see why we were giggling.

After breakfast the four Preslars returned home for some quiet time. I gathered our needed items for the annual trip to the hot springs. My children warmed my heart by gathering in the living room for some games together. What more could a parent want? Pretty much nothing. 

We spent the afternoon driving to Honeyville, listening to our favorite Christmas stories from the Vinyl Cafe, and then meeting up with the Sam Preslars and spending a good three hours pickling ourselves in the lovely hot water. 

After we got home, I rushed to put together a breakfast-for-dinner buffet with waffles, bacon, egg bites and potatoes. Oh and of course wassail. You can't have waffle and wassail without the wassail! We were joined by our friends Shelley and Rob, and we truly enjoyed their company. They let us know that they weren't going to be able to stay for the whole showing of A Muppet Christmas Carol, but we got it started together. I'm embarrassed to say that pretty much as soon as I got settled on the couch I zonked out. That's been a consistent theme for the season. If I sit down, I fall asleep. I've seen about half of each of our favorite movies. Maybe next year I won't be so tired? Yeah, right. Anyway, I felt a little silly that Shelley had to wake me up to give me goodbye hug. Best host ever. What can I say?

After the movie, there were some Christmas Eve things I wanted to do - read a story or two, write notes to each other, of course read from the bible, and also light the candles on our Emmanuel Wreath. The family voted, wisely, to read stories and read from the bible and save the note-writing and candle-lighting for Christmas day. Those who were participating in our Christmas onsie-pajamas went and changed into them and gathered for reading our favorite snowmen stories. After a very plaid photoshoot of course.

We had a fire built, and sitting in its cozy light with the tree twinkling by the window makes for the most beautiful place to listen to Troy read from Luke 2. I love Christmas. 

We shooed the kids off to bed, which is hilarious that they will still excitedly do even though two of them are legal adults. Santa need to get to work and besides, Troy and I were looking to our other favorite part of Christmas Eve. A quiet living room, fire in the stove, sitting in our big arm chair, snuggling under a blanket, listening to carols, and watching the snow drift gently down. It was perfect. Except for the part about the snow - we had a seriously green Christmas this year. But other than that it was perfect. 

We didn't last long in our snuggle chair before we were dozing off, so  before too long we went up to bed for a too-brief winter's nap, wondering if this would be the year that we'd have to wake up our kids for the first time.