Christmas Eve 2015

I still have a few Christmas-y events (cookie making, caroling) to post but was sitting in front of the fire today and felt like posting about our Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is probably my favorite day of the year.  I clearly remember as a late teen and in my early twenties looking around church on Christmas Eve and seeing all the young families.  I know this will sound weird but I could not wait to have my own family.  I would look around and imagine being married and bringing my children to Christmas Eve Mass.  My Dad never really went to church with us and my parents divorced when I was an adolescent so I had big dreams of a family and family tradtions.  And now each Christmas Eve I actually tear up at Mass because I am overwhelmed with gratitude for my family. We are not perfect.  We bicker and get on each others' nerves but my family surpasses anything I could have dreamed of.  I have a thoughtful, funny and giving husband and three incredible kids.  I really do count my blessings.

So we take a few photos before Mass.  I got a new camera that I am struggling with it so I made Dave practice before the kids came down.

Dave and Scout.

It was really really warm so Harry wore shorts to Mass. A Mom has to pick her battles.



Me and my peanuts.



I LOVE these pants.  Harry teased me that they are not very Christmas-y.  They are silk and the color is rhododendron (hot pink!) and I wanted to wear them all season but we had a lot of rain and I was afraid to wear them in the rain.

We looked for a neighbor to take a quick of of the whole family but could not find one.
Harry was making us laugh so hard as he took a few.  He can be very funny sometimes. He told us to pretend we were a family.




After mass, we came home and had some of our favorite Italian food for dinner.  Then we hung stockings and the kids opened a gift.  I had my shutter speed too low so all of the photos are blurry...


I was most excited to give Will his nutcracker this year.  Will is trying to figure out what to major in and what career path to chose.  He will major in science but he often jokes about wanting to be a shepherd.  It has become a big family joke that he will be a shepherd.  So, when I saw a shepherd nutcracker a few months ago, I bought it immediately.



Kate loves to bake and cook so hers was easy too.



Finding a nutcracker for Harry was hard.  He has a fishing nutcracker and lacrosse. He is such an entrepreneur but they don't make a nutcracker for that! I try to make it meaningful.  He is really good at gingerbread houses so I got this one.

But then I realized I gave him a different gingerbread one last year.  Oops!  I might be done with the nutcrackers.  The boys have so many and it is getting harder and harder to find just the right one.






After that we read Twas the night before Christmas.  Will read it this year.



I am SO bummed this is out of focus because my kids were genuinely enjoying each other.
This was candid!














And Dave read the story of the birth of Christ.





Then Kate and I sang Silent Night (and the boys plugged their ears);)

We went up to the media room and watched Home Alone 3 after that.
 We had watched Home Alone 2 a few nights before and really enjoyed it.

I absolutely LOVE the week between Christmas and New Year. We laze around and spend a lot of time as a family.  It is perfect.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying this week too.  More soon.