Christmas 'Eve

Christmas Eve was nice this year, all my kids were at the house all night, since that is what I wanted most for Christmas Iwas thrilled.  We of course had to make cookies to leave out for Santa, Sienna decided on ones with Christmas trees since she thought he would like them the most.

I made dinner, we usually have pizza on Christmas Eve but this year we had homemade beef stew with hard rolls, it was really good.  Daniels brother Jeremy was with us this year as well, I think it was a nice for Daniel to have someone from his family here, he has so little family left and he and his brother are very close.  We enjoyed having Jeremy with us, and he fit right in with all the other kids, of course I have known him since he was about 10 so Iguess he really is just like one of the kids.

Mom has started sending the kids gifts she wants them to open on Christmas Eve, usually partof it is books for them to read that night, this year along with the books they got new pajama's ( so they did not get to open the Christmas Eve jammies I got them LOL) I also let them open the gifts their Dad sends them.

We spent the rest of the evening reading the kids new books and watching the new Jim Carey a Christmas Carol, that is my favorite Christmas story and this version turned out nice, the older kids and I enjoyed the story and the younget ones stayed entertained since it was in cartoon type form.

At the end of the night we set up Christmas socks in the family room even though the tree and gifts were in the living room, it turned out easier to do the "Santa" stuff in where we had a bit more room.  Yet again one more reason I am happy to have a formal living room and a family room.