The Nutshell of Christmas

By tradition we go to my mom's house for Christmas Eve. It's always a good time. The night's festivities included:

*A talent show: The 3 girls danced a routine thety had made up. Tate sang the 12 days of Christmas (he has it all memorized). He also sang Silent night while Dan accompanied him on the piano. Many years ago at my grandma's traditional Christmas Eve gathering, when I was say, 11, Jonathan, Sharli and I performed a Alvin and the Chipmunks number, with chipmunk ears and bowties included. Mom had the crazy idea this year to do an encore performance, and somehow she got us all to agree.

*A nativity pageant: Dan was Joseph, with Kyndi as Mary. Morrissa was an Angel. Tate was the Star, Sharli and Tyson were Wisemen and Jonathan and Jen were Shepherds. My Dad narrated as usual.

*Santa comes for a visit: He First had Tate put on rudolph nose, make antelers with his hands, and sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Morrissa will be quick to tell you she did this last year). Then calls each person there up one by one to sit on his lap and then he gives each one a gift. This is Kamron's all time favorite part (I hear it's Dan's too!) Kyndi Oaks and Dayton were all a wee bit nervous...Dayton freaked otu on his lap - but somehow Sharli caught a smile. Oaklee got a microphone and crown from santa and Dayton got a teddy bear.

Then everybody opens presents from eachother. My mom made pillowcases with matching pajama bottoms for each of the kids. Each child's was a different fabric. So cute!! And the best part of that ewas that she made me a pillowcase too that has the fabric of each of my kids' all sewn together. I made Anna a bow for her hair and a tiny tutu. I've been excited to give it to her forever!! It was so cute on her.

This year had one teensy tiny difference: we all slept over there too!! ("we all" meaning Me, Kamron and our kids, Jonathan, his wife Jen and their baby Anna) (Sharli and Dan spent the night at the reception center apartment and of course Samantha and James are on their missions) Spending the night meant santa came to grandma's house...It also meant packing all the sleeping bags and all the presents under our tree. It was a lot of work, but we had fun!!

Somehow I never quite made it to my camera that morning. I'm lacking pictures in a major way. But I did get a picture of the fabric left from santa ripping his pants on the fireplace. Santa also dropped some of the logs and stones out of the fireplace too. Kyndi said he was in a hurry to get out of there because she kept on waking up. Dayton was quick to clean santa's mess when he found it. Dayton doesn't like things out of place.

Oaklee's favorite part by far was playing with baby Anna. She couldn't get enough of her.

Here are some other random pictures from the festivities...