We have the tradition of making ourselves in cookie form for Santa, and well, with 7 kids we figured Santa didn't need to have a cookie from each of the 13 adults that were there also. So the kids every excitedly decorated their cookie as we were making the big Christmas Eve dinner. All the food was so delicious and being able to spend time like that with everyone was almost the present in enough itself!
Dylan
Monkey
Chunk
Z
Kenna
JellyBean
(poor girl wasn't feeling really well but was trying so hard to tough it out, and was a really trooper through everything!)
Ase
And the finished collection! I bet Santa was sooooooo excited to see them and had no problem using the sugar high to deliver presents!
Another Christmas tradition we had growing up was a game called 'Don't Eat Pete' 9 napkins/plates are placed, with a treat on each one. The person who is 'it' leaves the room while the rest of us secretly pick a candy. The 'it' person comes back and tries to collect as many pieces of candy with out picking up the secret candy. When they do try to grab that one- you all yell "Don't eat Pete!!!!!" and it becomes another persons turn- you re-fill the napkins and secretly pick a new candy and do it all over again!
The kids love it.
Mr. Manly's first time.
After that it is the Christmas Jammies opening. Grams (my mom) makes all the kids jammies every year for Christmas. The kids have always LOVED their 'grams jammies' and will wear them until the next year when they get their new set!
If these are the faces of happy kids-
I don't know what are!
It is awesome to how much they love that and how much they love their Grams too, mine will snuggle up in their grams-jammies and tell me how much they love their grams for making them, and how much they love the jammies and how they are their favorite jammies ever and how it makes them feel loved. The fact that she takes the time to make them all- just makes me want to do more, and serve more. Like she does.
After that we watch Luke 2 and had a family prayer and then tucked everyone in downstairs.
They were all so excited to go to bed it was amazing. After we tucked the way to excited sugared kids in, Pa stayed downstairs and read them stories and then play his harmonica for them until they fell asleep and calmed down. Seriously it brings a tear to my eye how much I love that man- and how much he has taught me and how much he loves us. It warmed my heart seeing him love his grand kids like that too.
Santa knew that we would be traveling so he kept things easy.
We also had miss placed our stocking so family being as great as they are lent us some. =)
An upper view of a peaceful Christmas morning.
then the chaos....
Poor Uncle Stevie had a hard time getting up early. He also wasn't used to all the chaotic excitement, so he fell asleep.
After things calmed we all got ready to go to a traditional Christmas party. I have always loved this party and was so excited to see everyone!
When we walked up this is what greeted us! This is how you cool the drinks for 50+ people in Utah! No fridge needed!
We saw a lot of family, and we got reacquainted with a lot of people, but one of the most important ones there, Pa's mom, aka: Mother.
If I can be just a fraction of who she is and have just an nth degree of her wisdom and spirit, I will be happy. There has never been a time where I couldn't feel the spirit with her, feel her testimony, know of her love for me, my family, and our Savior. Her wisdom on plain old regular life things also makes me want to be a better person.
It was so good to see people. It was so great to see family. Feel their love and enjoy a special day with them again. Even though many of us now have families of our own, and were only able to get a few sentences to each other, we still felt their love.
It truly is a magical time of year.
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