The Best Night of the Year

The month of December is my favorite time of the year.   I especially love Christmas Eve.  My mom makes it so special and I have a blast spending time with my family.  This year was wonderful because all my siblings were in town.  They were all in town last year, but now Lindsey is married, Clayton has a new baby, and Jared was in town from the Netherlands.   It was a busy vacation with game nights every night, black light miniature golfing, dinners, and more game nights.  I didn't get a lot done on preschool or any other projects, but I loved spending time with family.

Back to Christmas Eve...after dinner the kids put on a play for the adults by acting out the nativity.

 The wise men (giving a gift of a cow I guess.)

 Mary and Joseph

Getting distracted with a toy

Every year my mom does a white elephant (with cool gifts.)  Even the little kids get involved (although theirs is rigged.)

 The adults is quite funny especially if you end up with a girlie gift like Derick did!  The wives don't mind too much if their husbands get stuck with a girlie gift!

Opening Grandma's gifts (look how happy Sammy is in the background!)

The boys loved playing with Sammy's present too!

 We enjoyed trying candy and food from the Netherlands.  This chocolate egg had a toy inside it.

One of the highlights though every year is playing chimes.  I didn't get any pictures because it was too intense this year.  We attempted "O Holy Night."  The melody is written with a harmony, so half of the family focused on that and the other half focused on something new we tried with chimes, an accompaniment part (the triplets).  Let's just say it was intense and we never quite made it through the whole song.  At one point Zane had three chimes and then played a fourth chime that Lindsey held out for him that she couldn't play as she was the counter and music leader that was absolutely necessary for this song.  It was a fun attempt that we would have gotten if we had a little more time, but the kids were sick of being ignored and shouted at whenever they got in the way of the music!

It was a wonderful night and great that we were all together!