Christmas Eve

I think my camera has a mind of its own and like a rebellious child, it is trying to make me look bad.  In exerting its independence on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, it decided to go for the blurry look on all my Christmas pictures.  For some unknown reason my pictures are blurry as often as they are not.  *Sigh*  If only guilt trips worked on technology as well as they do on real children. In reality, I am pretty sure it is all my fault- aka "user error."  But in my technological stupidity, I have yet to figure out a descent fix.  So rather than pout about it, I say we all consider it a "planned artistic approach."  Yep, we'll go with the whole "I meant to do that" idea.  I'm hoping to be ahead of the curve on the blurry picture movement.

So, here is our Christmas Eve.

Eve, Grandma Wendy, Grandma Louise, and Jack.

Each year we trade off between Christmas and Christmas Eve with each of our families to make everything fair.  We also do it to try to not get as overwhelmed trying to go and do and be everything in one day. So, we divide the craziness between two days.  Hmmm.  Maybe that was not as wise as we had originally envisioned.  But we do our best and I think that's all we can do when it comes to the holidays.  We also like to find a little time on each of the days to celebrate with some traditions in our own little family.

This year it was our chance to celebrate Christmas Eve with my side of the family. That being said, it ended up just being us, my mom and my Grandma Louise. My dad went back to California to spend Christmas with his dad (Grandpa Cotton) since he wasn't well enough to travel out here. I wish he could have been here too but sometimes you just have to make a hard choice and go with it.

My mom has a tradition of singing Christmas carols at their church on Christmas Eve so we went with her to that and then went back to our house and has dinner and opened presents.

This year we decided to do gifts by theme.  We felt that would make things easier and we wouldn't overspend.  I'm not sure if it really turned out that way but I still think the concept is a good one.  We did 4 categories in which we each got a gift in each of the categories.:

1.  Something you want.

2.  Something to read.

3.  Something to wear.

4.  Something to keep you entertained.

(I had seen the idea of "want, need, wear,and read" but the "need" category just wasn't working for us so we changed it.).  We all drew each other's names out of each category and then picked gifts accordingly.  It worked out perfect since we were each responsible for a gift to each family member.  I suppose we can just add more categories the more kids we have.

Kole drew my name for my "want" and I asked him to build me a little manger for my Christmas decor. And he did. Isn't it cute?

In future years we are going to bring out the manger all empty at the beginning of the Christmas season and then slowly fill it with hay or yarn or those little crinkley packing strips.  Each day as we do something good or kind or Christlike we will put in a little piece of filling.  By the time Christmas comes around, the manger will be full and comfy for out little baby Jesus doll to make his appearance in the manger on Christmas morning.

Gifts...

Jack is still learning to smile...

We were going for the "real" look... crying baby, covered faces, not looking at the camera.  Christmas pictures are just so perfect and magical.