Twas' the night before Christmas.......

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

I love Christmas Eve!!  I love the traditions that we have in our family.  We are lucky that we live by both of our families so that time can be spent at both.  First, we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Abbott's to visit and let the kids share all their excitement with them.  Then, onto Grandma and Grandpa Graff's house.  This year the whole family was here.  Chad and the kids drove up from Texas to celebrate Christmas.  Grandpa Pug was feeling well enough to join us for the night and we are grateful that he was there.  We always start off with my mom's traditional broccoli cheese soup and bread bowls.  Then while the adults are cleaning up, the grandkids go downstairs and start practicing for the Nativity Story.  When all the parts are picked and rehearsed then we all join together in reading the story of Christ's birth.  The kids love being a part of the story.  After that Makayla performed a flute solo and then we all learned about the story of the song, "Silent Night", which we all joined in singing.  The program was cute that was put together.  We ate cheesecake and then as always at the end Grandma and Grandpa give out the traditional Christmas PJs!  We love this tradition.  

After gathering the kids and taking them home, the real fun begins.  Nate and I usually watch a movie as we wait for all 5 kids to fall asleep (this can take awhile) before we begin doing our "Santa" duties.  I love this part!  This year it only took a couple of hours to finish it all.  We love this part just knowing that in a few short hours we will get to watch the kids excitement of it all.