Christmas Eve

Christmas! Christmas Eve is spent at my parent's home for the Bradley Production. (Ben termed it this a few years ago and we all loved it!) In the morning we pick off the turkey that's been cooking in the oven all night (another thing that Ben thinks is strange - that I can eat turkey for breakfast!) and then after presents we head over to Ben's parent's home.
We start with a wonderful dinner and the homemade tomato soup is the best ever. Mom first included this soup the year I was pregnant with Trent and that's practically all I wanted to eat!
Then we head out to the living room to open the "surprise" Christmas Eve presents. The tradition of Christmas pajamas started years ago when there were only a few of us so this is always a fun tradition. The last several years the pajamas have been in the theme of whatever is being learned in school that year, so this year we all had army pjs. We love them! Ready to open the mystery presents! The boys are so excited!!
Tyler modeling his great new jammies.
We have to do a crazy picture or they'll all look like this!
The fams all together. This year was great adding three new people to our family: Jasmyn's husband Marc; Hal's finace Ashely; and Tyler. Our family all decked out.
We had to put Tyler down after this - too much fun for one night! We then move the evening to a more spiritual theme. We have our annual Christmas Cantata where we read the story of Christ's birth and sing coordinating songs in between. It definately sets the tone for the night and all the next day. Trent playing so softly with the nativity sets and loving holding baby Jesus. After the last song we start the Gift of Love. Basically everyone passes the "gift" (which is an empty wrapped up box) around the room and shares their testimony and their love for someone in the room. No one can pass to the same person twice. In our family it basically means lots of kleenex passed around the room and tears from everyone.
This year not everyone went out to look at Christmas lights in their jammies because someone had to stay with Tyler, so most of us kids went to deliver stockings to the missionaries and saw lights along the way. Then there's always magic Christmas cocoa when we get home to help us have "visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads"!
After a long night we all start drifting off to bed while "It's a Wonderful Life" plays on the tv. We know that Santa will come as soon as we're all asleep so we all get in bed quickly...that, and we're all exhausted!