Christmas Eve

With our immediate family getting bigger and us wanting to try and simplify Christmas so we can enjoy it more, we thought that this was a good year to change things a little!!

Usually we spend Christmas Eve at Gumpy and Gummy's house with the extended family and then come back to Grandpa and Grandma's house on Christmas morning to open presents and exchange gifts with my siblings.

This year, we had dinner with everyone at Gumpy and Gummy's house and then after dinner instead of sticking around for games and a program, we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house to have our own immediate family gathering (present exchange and program) instead of doing it Christmas morning.



We started off with a slide show that Clay put together of pictures of everyone from the last year. It turned out really great and was fun to see so many pictures and re-live some of our favorite memories from the year. The kids loved seeing pictures of themselves or funny pictures of their aunts and uncles on the TV!


After the slide show, Grandma and Grandpa had put together a nice program/advent scripture reading focusing on Christ and the real meaning of Christmas and gave us all blocks to make an advent calendar for our own homes.


Of course, then came everyone's favorite- presents! The kids were dying to rip into their presents! They got some fun presents from their grandparents and aunts and uncles! They were so spoiled! We are so excited to have another cousin joining the grandkids this year too!!! We are looking forward to some fun times in Branson next Thanksgiving as well!












Since this will be the last time we are all together for a few years, Grandma and Grandpa gave everyone matching PJ's for the traditional "on the stairs" Christmas morning (only it was evening!) photo. After many awful, hot, and not working attempts to take the photo on the stairs, we decided it wasn't worth it and took it upstairs where there was light and we could spread out a bit and breathe!! Some things just aren't worth it! lol.



It felt a little strange to change things up a bit this year but it was still a fun evening full of lots of family and that's what is most important!

Once we were done with all the photo ops...we hurried home to get the kids (and ourselves) to bed so Santa could come!!! Were they good enough for him to come this year?!?! Stay tuned....