Christmas Eve festivities

Annual family Christmas Eve party at Shawn and Denell’s:

Ate yummy food.

White Elephant exchange:

I think everyone was envious of Justin’s white elephant gift. A big stuffed Santa and Reindeer.

Acting out the Nativity:

Lots of playing with cousins:

 Justin giving the girl’s piggy-back rides

And of course, lots of Santa tracking on the computer. The kids get so excited to see where Santa is.

One time after looking at the computer, Eli came running in and told us that we needed to hurry and get home because Santa was going to be at our house in 2 hours! Ryan said jokingly,”yeah, we better hurry because it takes us an hour just to get home!” The look on Eli’s face was priceless. It was a mix of excitement and worry. And then he told us we needed to leave right then.

On the way home Eli was trying so hard to fall asleep. He then remembered that he hadn’t sprinkled the Reindeer food on the lawn that his teacher had given him. He asked Ryan if he would do it, because he thought that he would be asleep by the time we got home. It was so funny how he was so worried about everything.

When we got home, Eli was still awake and so he was able to sprinkle the food himself.

 

After putting out the reindeer food, he came in to make a plate of goodies for Santa. He said that he wanted to give him more than cookies.

This was the spread he left for Santa:

apples, carrots, cookies, granola bar, candy cane, two gumballs, some milk, and some Pomegranet 7up, a toothpick, a napkin, and some chapstick. He said that Santa could share some of it with the reindeer. He left the chapstick, because he thought that his lips might get chapped from flying in his sleigh so much. What a funny kid, and so thoughtful.

This year was extra fun for me to see Eli get so excited about all the magical things that Christmas brings. He was so giddy. But when it was time for bed, he crashed!