Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve finally arrived!  We woke that morning to red and green streamers all over our house...some little elves were a bit excited about Santa coming.  I neglected to get a photo however :/  We broke out a Christmas puzzle and worked on that for a few hours.  As much as I curse at these, I can't seem to walk away from it unfinished.

The girls baked cookies we would later decorate for Santa.

We had a small feast of sandwich's, chips and dips, and other appetizers for dinner.

And finally we were able to justify our official "eve" starting with our traditional family games.  The rules are simple every year each one of us comes up with a Christmas game to play.  This is my favorite tradition!  This year the kids prepared all on their own.  Chase had us play two versions of Christmas Mad Libs.

Sadi had secretly hidden candy canes all over the house, and we had to search out all her hiding spots to find the most.  She was also the photographer for this game :)

Kelsey made a rolling dice snowman game.

We had to roll the dice and complete our snowman first.

Chase was the lucky roller at this game and completed his snowman first.

My game was Christmas Family Feud, which in true Denning style there was lots of arguing their "correct" answers.

I missed getting any photos of Matt's game which I suspect he put together literally minutes before playing.  He had us tossing snowballs like an egg toss.  Once we finished games we decorated cookies for Santa, and a few for taste testing.

I had one family gift that I let them all open, which I was really excited about.

I bought matching Christmas Pajamas for all of us.  However when we opened them, it was quickly evident Chase's was WAY to small!  Although I felt bad, it was hilarious, and we all had a good laugh.

He was a good sport and at least let us snap a few photos before he lost total circulation in his body.  Daddy let him have the shirt off his back...literally so he wouldn't feel left out. #momfail

 

We were excited when the big guy made a surprise stop at our house.  Somehow Daddy always seems to be in the bathroom when he stops by :)

He gave each of the kids their very own echo dot, which they were all very excited for.

We snuggled up and watched our traditional Christmas Eve movie, Prep and Landing.

We put up the stockings, and then said our goodbye to our elves.

Sadi could not get in enough hugs to these little guys.  She even made them a special book of memories to take back to the North Pole with them.

I think she will miss them most of all!

And with the night winding down we put out our cookies and milk for Santa and hoped all the kids would soon be nestled snug in their beds.