Christmas Eve 2010

Matt's parents always hold their Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve, which makes for a very loud, very crowded, very fun and very loving night! We love it and wouldn't miss it for the world. Marsha has the most amazing tree set-up, with the tree up on a table, surrounded by a massive ice (Styrofoam) sculpture that Calvin carved a few years ago. Along the nooks and crannies of the ice sculpture are little houses and people from the Thomas Kinkade Christmas village. To top the whole thing off, there is an electric train that runs around the bottom, through tunnels and caves of ice!! So beautiful and fun!

Here are Tori and her cousins, Lydia and Abby: Daphne wanted she and Tori to wear their Christmas dresses, and being the frilly girl that I am I agreed, but we made sure to bring comfy clothes too!
Tori and Daddy:

After a magnificent dinner, we all settled in downstairs for a Christmas program, which included lots of things, one of which was Daphne and Isaac singing "Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus"

They were a little nervous, they had been practicing it perfectly at home. It wasn't quite what it had been in the privacy of our own home, but it was so sweet and everyone loved it!

After that, Raegan helped the kids put together a mini little Christmas pageant. Isaac wanted to be the donkey and Daphne wanted to be Mary. Abby and Lydi were sweet to let her do that! Abby was an angel and Tori was going to be an angel too. Lydi was a wise man, and then Tori wanted to be a wise man, too. Corbin and Zach were shepherds and just as we were starting, Tori was ripping off her costume. She wanted to be the Baby Jesus. Raegan was super- sweet and let her step in even though we were going to have Penny be the baby Jesus.
Here is everyone "backstage" waiting for their entrance:

We read the story from Luke 2 and as Sydney read the words, " And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.", Tori walked in from "back stage" and said, "I'm Baby Jesus"

Here is Lydia, our lone wiseman:

Austin played Joseph... here they are waiting for the Shepherds:

And after all that jazz, it was time for presents! We open one at a time in the Hunter family... notice everyone waiting anxiously for their turns.

Here is Daphne receiving her long-desired American Girl Doll, Molly:. Daphne has been begging for one since September and has carried the catalog around with her, changing her mind on her favorite every day or so. Finally, a few weeks before Christmas I told her she needed to choose her very favorite one. After a few hours, she still couldn't pick. So, I asked her to narrow it down to a few. After another half hour, she brought me a painstakingly written list of 6 dolls. Finally, I just picked Molly for her. Molly always seemed to make the top 3, so I figured we were safe!

Tori, opening her great big box (It's a wooden vanity- she's super into lip gloss right now!)

Tori's gift opening was a little anti-climactic because I didn't think to have Matt go over and put the present together ahead of time. Poor Marsha and Calvin have so much to do and so many presents to get ready and I didn't even think about it. Anyway, Tori was more interested in the empty boxes lying around:

Isaac had been talking about these Lego sets that have knights and warriors, etc... so Nanny and Papa got him a huge set of Knights and a castle to build, with a bunch of extra boxes of knights for reinforcement:

And here he is, running over to hug his Nanny and say thanks....

So, for part of Marsha and Calvin's gift, we gave them a personalized photo book called "My Family Proclamation". It is so gorgeous!! I made it at My LDS Memories

and I highly recommend their website. It was so easy to use and the book is just gorgeous. It basically gives you a format and you click and drag pictures into the given slots. The pictures are framed with the words to "The Family: A Proclamation to the World"

It is so beautiful and meaningful and I think Marsha and Calvin loved it!

We had a fantastic time- we came home ready for bed, but Tori was having a hard time leaving Daphne's doll alone, so Matt went ahead and put together her vanity that night:

She LOVED it!!

She didn't have any makeup... (that would come in her stocking in the morning) so she grabbed a wooden block and pretended that it was her lipstick. It was so adorable!! She just kept sitting down, opening the drawer, rubbing the block across her mouth, and then she would walk away and start the whole thing over again!

After we finished our "Countdown to Christmas" ( I didn't have time to blog about it- but we read a few verses of the Christmas story every night and sang a Christmas song together) we said our prayers and tucked their little excited and exhausted bodies into bed. And then we went to work! I was much more efficient this year, and I had gradually wrapped presents as I went through the month of December, so I had to add ribbons to a few, stuff stockings and move everything out of their hiding spots and up to the Christmas tree:

And then we went to bed! I'll post Christmas Day pics as soon as possible, but I hope you had a Christmas Eve that was just as lovey, warm, and filled with family and faith! Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night!