Twas The Night Before Christmas

The day and evening before Christmas was so much fun, despite Clay's absence.  He had to work the day before and the day after Christmas.  At least he was off at 6:00 Christmas Eve and we were able to spend some time with him that evening. 

Our day began with cookie making and decorating. We made several plates of cookies. We dropped plates off in the drive through window at CVS for Clay's staff. I felt bad that they all had to work Christmas Eve and I wanted them to be able to take something home to their families. We stopped by a few friends' houses to drop of goodies. And we kept one of the plates, decorated by Zane himself, for Santa. My kitchen was a complete disaster by the time we were done.

When Clay got home, we had a fun dinner totally made up of appetizers. When I was looking for different traditions to begin with our family, a friend mentioned that her family always did a giant appetizer dinner Christmas Eve. I thought that sounded like fun, so I gave it a shot. Clay said it is definitely something he wants to continue in the future. 

After dinner, we opened our Christmas Eve present full of Christmas jams. Zane and Leila's sizes are too different to find matching ones (and Zane's are a size too small), but we coordinated with red and white. I found matching pants for me and Clay, and got red and green shirts. The shirts were a surprise for Clay and he LOVED them. Surprisingly, he said that he would even wear his shirt outside of the house. Once we were snug in our jams, we (Zane) ate popcorn and we watched a Nativity movie and a couple of Tabernacle Choir Christmas songs through YouTube on the TV. Then it was off to bed for the little ones so that Santa could come and work his magic!