Christmas Eve Festivities

Opa and I have our Christmas celebration with Kara and Matt and the grandchildren on Christmas Eve. Usually great-grandma is with us, but this year she went over to my brother's Christmas Eve celebration.

Christmas Eve is a busy day for Kara and I. I like to go out shopping for last minute items in the morning, so I did that. Then there was the last round of gift wrapping to do. Kara prepared the potato soup for our meal the day before, but we still had to arrange the relish tray, make deviled eggs, bake the pigs-in-a-blanket, and put together the cookie tray. (The last item did not get done. We ate the cookies out of their tins!)

Jake, Bentley and I put together our Christmas puzzle. We played Nativity Bingo afterwards with Viva and great-grandma and then we played a new Christmas card game Grandma Vicki had sent. Kara tried out a new system for gift opening this year and it worked very well. Instead of waiting until later in the day after dinner and opening all the gifts one after another in a big rush, she decided to let the children open gifts throughout the day. She gave them each one gift from her and Matt early in the afternoon. They opened them and spent the next hour reading (Jake and Bentley got books) and playing (Viva got a face painting book) with their new gifts.

Kara and Matt and the older children went sledding with friends. The sledding hill is two blocks away, so Kara brought Lincoln home when he decided after one run down the hill that he'd rather be with opa. Evan took a nap at home. The sledding party didn't last really long because the temperatures outside were below zero.

The children opened a few more gifts and really looked at them. The mailman arrived with Grandma Vicki's package! We ate our meal. Evan got into the black olives three different times: twice while we were setting the table and then again after dinner when we left the relish tray unguarded. 

Opa, Bentley and Jake with their ukuleles led a sing-along of Christmas songs. We read the Christmas story (Bible version). Great-grandma came back home. just before we all opened gifts. Bentley, Jake, Viva and I spent the last two hours of Christmas Eve learning a new game, Forbidden Island. 

I asked Mark for a photo of Kara to add to the mix, but he didn't take a single one. He says she was too busy taking photos on her camera. So why isn't there a photo of her taking photos?!