Our Christmas Eve

If you have been reading 3 Peanuts for a while, you know that we have a lot of little family traditions around Christmas. Therefore, these posts tend to be even longer and more picture laden than the others. It is really important to me to have all of this documented for the kids.

Our friend, Jennifer sent us this great ornament of Santa in a Chinese Dragon.

Kate hung it on our tree.

We always go to Mass on Christmas Eve.

As soon as we are all dressed for Mass, I torture the family with the obligatory photos in front of the tree.....

Scout even joined in.

Brotherly love.

Then I torture them further by arriving at church an hour before Mass so that we can get a seat. These photos are at our church.

So, we have had a tradition for several years (as long as I can remember) that we have pizza on Christmas Eve. This began because it is hard to cook a big meal when you are at Mass from 3:30 until 6:00 (remember we go early to get a seat). Also, I have always cooked a big breakfast and dinner on Christmas Day. Our family LOVES pizza so it was easy and we all were happy. Even when we discovered that some of us were sensitive to gluten and dairy, we still had our pizza once a year. This year, we were informed that Harry should never eat dairy or gluten at all. So, we began a new tradition of going out for dinner after Mass. We chose Fleming's because they have a gluten free menu and they were open. The boys had Alaskan King Crab legs and I think they thoroughly enjoyed them.

Will and I did sneak out for lunch on the 23rd and had our yearly slice of good pizza though. I think we all missed our old tradition but we will eventually find a new one that works for us.

After dinner we drive around and look at Christmas lights.

Then we come home, out on our PJ's and continue our traditions...

We hang our stockings by the chimney with care....

Harry took this which is why I look tall:)

Then, the children open a gift. The boys always get a nutcracker. Usually, I get them one that represents their interests of that year (baseball, soccer, pirates, chef etc). This year, I bought the Charlie Brown and Snoopy because it is a big tradition for us to watch the Charlie Brown specials as a family for all of the holidays. I even posted about it once.

Kate gets an ornament (and a bracelet sometimes). This year, she got a ballerina since she did ballet and had her first recital.

Then we always read Twas the Night before Christmas and the story of Jesus' birth.

Kate had some snuggle time with Daddy.

Then she was off to bed. The boys and I watched the Heat/Cold Miser Christmas special and they monitored Santa's whereabouts on Norad. They loved doing that all day.

We are having some friends over for dinner tonight and enjoying having Dave home for the week! I will post Christmas Day soon.

I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!