Christmas Eve

christmas eve day was pretty uneventful. we basically just hung out and played with our christmas toys and read christmas books and wrapped a few last minute gifts. 

 for dinner we did our traditional "spread" as kent calls it- a buffet of sorts. cheese and crackers and veggies and fruit and he makes bacon for our once a year experience lol while we ate we watched the first part of the nativity movie with that actress from whale rider. it is a cool non-lds take on the story.

by the time we finished eating seth was DONE with life. he was super sick- we all were! with coughs and runny noses and some fevers all around. so he had to miss acting out the play =o[ i felt bad but honestly it would have just ruined it for the rest of us to have a grumpy pants person participate. 

jenna was the angel and insisted on wearing her princess sophia costume. she was hilarious as was expected. natalie was mary, which also was to be expected. 

kent was joseph. here is the angel coming to him in his dreams. 

and here is the not reverent mary lol

the angel coming to the shepherd. (how did the littlest person end up with the biggest part??)

and here is caleb the wise man =o]

it was super fun! i love this tradition and i'm so grateful my family loves it too and that kent is willing to change things up from his family's tradition and do this on christmas eve. we do his family's christmas eve program on christmas night instead and we love it too. 

then we got ready the plate of cookies for santa. natalie suggested putting out some carrots for the reindeer. caleb insisted that since santa is obese, he should have some carrots too and less cookies lol the kids know that santa isn't real like jesus is real. santa is real like mickey mouse and harry potter are real- it doesn't take away from the fun AT ALL and lets us focus on the real meaning of christmas while enjoying secular traditions as well. TRUTH for the WIN!

here is the hilarious note natalie hastily wrote and left by the plate- it was after bedtime at this point and kent was getting antsy! 

once the kids were in bed we finished cleaning up, got everything out and set things up. then kent shooed me upstairs. he is so adorable- i swear! he puts on a front of being a business man and a too cool for school kid, but really he is a sweetheart. he LOVES giving gifts like no one else i know!