Christmas Eve

Happy Holidays!  I always look forward to the Christmas festivities and this year was no exception - my Christmas "travel" tree and all the decorations were up early so we could enjoy them - the little bit of Christmas baking I did was done - gifts were all wrapped and under the tree - and the Christmas music has been playing ever since Thanksgiving!

 

This year we changed it up a little - the girls were wanting to spend Christmas morning with their immediate families so our celebration was celebrated the weekend before Christmas!

 

Glenn and I closed the business at noon on Friday and after a stop in the Springs for a couple of last minute gifts, we headed up to Denver!  We unloaded all the gifts at Jessi's before heading over to Jaime's for OUR Christmas Eve celebration!

 

Everyone was there by late afternoon and we started the festivities with a glass of wine!

 

Our Christmas Eve menu is soup:  baked potato and meatball tortellini - you can tell the grand kids are eating more and more as there was only a cup of soup left!  Add in some veggies with dip and Hawaiian sweet rolls and you've got one great dinner!!

The little ones sang "Away In A Manger" and attempted to do most of the actions in front of the tree plus a couple more songs - it's always fun to play the guitar and sing!

Next on our list of traditions was the reading of the Christmas story from the bible and The Night Before Christmas!

And then it was time for our "Prediction Questions List" - I KNEW Glenn and I weren't going to win this year but we were only ONE behind the winner - in fact the Keppys and the Savages tied - which means we go to the tiebreaker question - the price of gas at the Western in Woodland Park!  Even though Jaime and Brad were NOT in the running for the frog, they guessed the EXACT amount of the price of gas!  And in the end, Jill and Robby took the frog home...........I'm just sure next year will be OUR turn again!!

Jessi had a great idea already planned out for the next event - she had gold tickets printed out and we pretended they were the special tickets for the "Polar Express" - Gary punched each of the kids' tickets with his special punch he uses on his bus route and they all grabbed their coats and mittens and we headed out the door!!  We all got into 3 cars and did a special loop of looking at Christmas lights - it was wonderful and we all thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

Some of the homes were beautifully decorated and had music set to the lights!  What a fun night and we decided it has to become one of our traditions!  Then it was back to Jaime's for festive yummy jello cake!!  What a fun evening spent with the kids and grand kids!