Eve and Day

Christmas is officially checked off my (figurative) to do list. We did it, folks. We made it another year. 

The next one will be here before we know it. Let us brace ourselves!

In the meantime, here is how Eve and Day went…

Eve

The past few years we’ve gone to see the lights downtown on Christmas Eve morning. I realize that this seems like torture to most of the population, but we give our kids the option to stay home and sleep in and every one of them has always chosen to come with us. We leave home around 6:30 a.m. The lights are on until 8:00. We get to see the lights and the sunrise, and there are no crowds. 

After we went to see the lights, we went to breakfast. We invited Scotty’s dad and step-mom, and they met us there.

 

We spent the middle of the day getting our house picked up and finishing our Christmas prep. 

We always spend Christmas Eve night with Scotty’s dad’s side of the family. We have dinner, Santa comes, and then we have a talent show. 

This year’s talents included doing a Mad Lib, “show me something to lift and I will lift it,” some random dancing and singing, storytelling, and a human pyramid.

On our way home, Zoe asked us to track Santa to see where he was. He could have been anywhere in the world, but he was 35 seconds from Puerto Rico. That means Santa left our Christmas Eve party and headed to Nicky!

Day

I didn’t sleep much Christmas Eve (or any of the 23 days leading up to it), so I was wide awake around 3:00 a.m. I eventually got out of bed and read my scriptures and started making breakfast.

The girls all woke up around 6:30. My mom came over to watch them open presents and then we had breakfast (biscuits and gravy, sausage, hash browns, and eggs). 

After my mom left, we cleaned up a bit and relaxed while the girls messed with their Christmas spoils. Scotty’s mom and step-dad stopped by to see what the kids got for Christmas.  At noon we went to my mom’s house for lunch.

In the afternoon, Scotty’s dad and step-mom came over to see what the kids got for Christmas. Then the neighbor kids came over to play, and we took everyone up to Scotty’s mom’s house for cheesecake.

Nicky called us in the morning for a few minutes and watched the girls open a few presents. He had to be quick because he had a district meeting. In the afternoon, he called us again and told us that he got the best Christmas present ever! He caught his first iguana!

(He’s been trying for five months!)

In the evening, he called once more and told us that he’d spent most of Christmas Day stuck at the church on an exchange while his companion handled some kind of emergency (we get the story later). He went to Wendy’s for dinner. It sounded like a really sad Christmas. But he said it’s okay because of the iguana.

Now we are all in Christmas recovery mode. We’re exhausted. We’re slowly cleaning everything up. And we’re sick of Christmas food. 

But the chaos doesn’t end here. Oh, no! Because we have birthdays and New Year coming right up! Starting with tomorrow when a certain son of mine turns 19.