Christmas Eve and Day Photos

Here are a few random photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day around here:

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The five of us on Christmas Eve evening, just after coming home from our church's Christmas Eve service.  Incidentally, our church put on the best Christmas Eve service I've ever been to...revolving around a Beatles' Let It Be theme.  Fantastic!

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A lot of presents under that little Charlie Brown-ish tree.

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The kids opened one gift on Christmas Eve...pajamas.

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Here they are, moments later, in their new nightwear.

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Then we sat down to a Christmas Eve feast...a whole bunch of appies, cookies, and chocolate...and, of course, egg nog!

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Each Sunday for the four weeks prior to Christmas Day, we lit a purple candle (one candle four Sundays before Christmas; two candles three Sundays before Christmas, etc etc) in anticipation of the Christmas Day event.  On Christmas Eve, though it wasn't quite Christmas Day yet, we lit the white, centre candle to signify the birth of Christ.

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Before Geoff and I went to bed on Christmas Eve, I filled the stockings in anticipation of the next morning.  Sadly, the stocking holders on the mantle weren't strong enough to hold the heavy stockings up but that was ok - I just piled them onto the hearth below.

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Christmas Day!

By 7:00am on Christmas morning, we were all downstairs and the kids were primed to dig into their stockings and find out what things were inside!  I gave each of the kids a bin (not so attractive, I know!) that they could pile stocking stuffers and gifts into, to keep messes from getting out of hand and toys/stocking stuffers from getting mixed up.

In the kids stockings were things like:  chapstick; chocolate; an orange; fruit leather; a mini cereal box; a $5 gift card from McDonalds for hot chocolate (by far the most expensive thing in the stockings); stickers; temporary tattoos; chocolate coins; a twoonie; a matchbox car.  The stockings were almost identical; the only differences were that the boys received packs of bubble gum and a tiny travel game, and Lizzie received a bath gem and a small tube of body glitter.

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Even the Mom and Dad got to unload stockings (sorry...not wearing any makeup here!).  

In my stocking were soap, my favourite shower gel, chocolate, little tea pouches, ear buds to replace my old ones, etc etc.

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In Geoff's stocking were chocolate, an egg timer (Geoff loves soft-boiled eggs!), a gift card to see a movie, a bar of natural (manly-scented) soap, bath gel, a shoe polish thingee, and so on.

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Can you tell that Matthew loved receiving a watch...

  

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...and a model car?

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Seth opening up his lego and playmobil sets.  He's not one to show a lot of overt excitement about these kinds of things, but you can see that he's happy.

 

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Lizzie opening her portable little playmobile doll house, and pulling the new walkie talkie out of her new purse and treating it like a cell phone (as if!!!)!

 

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The cameras for the boys were an instant hit!

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Here are both boys, taking pictures of their Daddy a bit later when he drifted off into a little cat nap. 

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These two shots show Seth's classic intense look rather well!

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And two classic shots of Lizzie's expressive face.  If you ignore her for even a second, she gets right in your face (note the reprimanding finger...she's been doing that for as long as we've known her!) and lets you know that she is not happy about it.  Note Seth's impervious face...he is very accustomed to Lizzie's expectations and isn't fazed in the least...I'm not even sure he's hearing her at this moment!!

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My parents joined us mid morning for brunch on Christmas Day, and for more gift opening.  Can you tell that my Mom liked one of the gifts she got from us??!!

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Most of Christmas Day was pretty lazy, and we enjoyed a few rounds of a favourite game:  Blokus.

All in all, I'd say that Christmas 2012 was lovely.  Lots of good memories to carry into the new year!