Christmas Eve

Red Deer has an amazing ice sculpture display every Christmas. Every year I have good intentions of going, but we always get too busy. This year we finally went. It was honestly the coolest thing ever! It was a Toy Story theme, and all the sculptures were characters of Toy Story- cool, but not really Christmassy.

It was a freezing night, so we all got bundled up to look at the display. The kids loved it, so I think we will try and make a point of going every year!

For Christmas Eve, we invited the Darbys over. (well half invited, half invited themselves). -----kidding Meg. We had a really fun time.

We started the evening off acting out the Nativity. Meg bought some really great costumes in Jerusalem when she went, and I have never seen such fancy wise men!

Next we had to do the Evans tradition of playing the bells. This is one thing that my in-laws do that I absolutely LOVE!

I made big copies of all the Christmas songs that we play, but of course I couldn't find them so everyone just gathered around aunt Meg, and played their bells right in her ears.

After the songs were done,the little kids had fun just running around and playing their bells. It got really noisy!

After all the performances, we decided to wind the kids down with a little snack before bed.

Chocolate Fondue. Mmmmmmm

Theres nothing like a bunch of kids (some of them sick) double dipping fruit into chocolate! They loved every second of it!

It was a really fun night. I'm happy that the Darbys live so close to us, so we are able to get together with them.

After they left, I thought I would really try and wind down the kids with a Christmas book. Notice the p.j.'s- not matchy matchy, --no time for that this year. We read, and sent the kids to bed. I think they were all asleep in 15 minutes. I remember being awake all night, because I was too excited to fall asleep. Not my kids!

I like doing Christmas at our own house, and making new traditions for our family, and fun memories.

Merry Christmas!!