Our Christmas Eve started with E's now-California friend, F, in the house. The girls went to see "Saving Mr. Banks" at the Lake Theater yesterday and the reunion morphed into a sleepover.
We spent the day getting ready for tomorrow's family party and were pretty much done in time to get to the Christmas Eve service at church. Here I am with the kids before church.
The best part of the service is the candle-lighting, but we only have the candles lit to sing "Silent Night." I usually give the kids new pajamas to open on Christmas Eve, but this year they all received new pajamas before today. L, though, saved the night and gave everyone a present from her for each of us to open. We decided that since B is always the first one up in the morning, it gives him a bit (OK, a big) advantage when it comes to finding the pickle ornament on Christmas morning. Instead of waiting for tomorrow, we had the kids gather in the kitchen while we hid the pickle tonight. Here they are searching the tree for it:
And the pickle-finder was B, who pulled the ornament from its hanger as he was taking it from the tree. He fixed it and we gave him the present - a six-pack of Coke and three $2 instant lottery tickets. B is such a sweetheart that he let his sisters each scratch off a card with the stipulation that if they won anything, half of it would be his. No one won. He's even going to share the Coke with them.
L didn't get to open any presents tonight so she dug into the popcorn that a neighbor dropped off for us - a variety of cheddar cheese, zebra (white and milk chocolate-covered) and caramel flavors.
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