Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve
This year we invited multiple families to join us for our traditional Christmas Eve breakfast. We planned on the Elliotts, Hickmans, Christensens & Stones. The Christensens got sick and were not able to make it unfortunately.

This year we asked each family to bring their food wishes whereas in the past we've cooked and supplied everything ourselves.

The breakfast party started at 9am with a pj dress code.
Sterling made his biscuits and gravy and crepes too. I made two different kinds of muffins. We supplied lots of egg nog. Food items that were brought by our friends were egg casserole, fruit, crepe toppings, cinnamon rolls, boiled eggs, juice, clementine oranges.
It was a delicious feast enjoyed by Malinda and her two boys (Al is deployed currently), Victor & Laura with their kids Antonio and Julia, Jordan and Natasha with their kids Eli and Alyosha and ourselves (of course).

The kids played and the adults chatted. Then my kids gave surprise gifts to their friends to unwrap. That was fun.

Everyone had things to do today so they did not stay all afternoon. And I did not take any pictures. I wanted everyone to enjoy their time and not deal with a dreaded photo.

Eli ended up staying to play for a few hours while his parents went to take care of their totaled car problem. (Natasha was in an accident a few weeks ago. An old woman ran a stop sign and Natasha crashed into her. Luckily nobody was seriously injured...although Natasha had neck pain for a while.)

We recently bought Newsies and I had not seen it in many years. So we tried watching it as a family. Luke stayed to watch it with Ster and I even though Athena and Ty went off to play. We watched only about a third of the movie before turning it off to finish another day. At first I thought it would not be a show my kids would get anything out of. But once we started watching it I realized it is a good educational experience for Luke. He lives in a world so different from even the one I was raised in. He lives in a world which makes times as was set for the film Newsies seem alien or parallel universed. 


Backtrack a little bit...Yesterday Gunnar came to play a few hours in the morning. Then Julia came to play all afternoon while her parents went on a date to see the new Star Wars movie. They had an extra ticket to go to the theater that expires in January. They gave it to us which was very sweet. They even gave us $10 as like a Christmas gift so we could go see it together if we wanted.
But I don't like going to the movie theaters anymore and I can wait to watch this one. Sterling decided that next week (which he has off of work) he will take Luke to go see it. Luke has been so excited about this new Star Wars movie. I am excited he will not have to wait any longer to see it.

Laura (Julia's mom) is one of my closest friends.

Back to today...Christmas Eve. After dinner we opened our Christmas Eve gifts. New pjs. Everyone put theirs on. I read about the Nativity and different aspects of it from the Friend magazine as the kids put out nativity toy pieces.

Before the kids went to bed my friend Jen came by. She was sad she had to miss out on the breakfast because her family is sick. But she came by with a gift for me and one for Athena (she's Athena's other nursery leader). We sat and chatted a while. That was nice.  In Italy I tried so hard to have friends and find good friends but I feel I've lost the friends I had tried so hard to gain. Here I have lots of friends and friends I know I will have for life too. I am so blessed and so happy here in Rapid City.

I have been so excited for Christmas morning for a couple of days. And it is finally Christmas Eve and bed time for me (mom). Goodnight. Merry Christmas!