Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is full of tradition in anticipation of celebrating the Saviors birth and excitement of Christmas morning.
Being away from family, we lure in friends with the traditional Christmas Eve pizza dinner and then have them help with acting out the nativity.

(one of these days I'll have to put together some better props and costumes)

Although Logan was still too scared to sit in Santa Claus' lap this year, we tracked Santa on NORAD's website (pictures a bit farther down) and he got very, very excited.
He was the one to put out the cookies - one cookie from every child. He knew they were for Santa Claus and that Santa would then leave presents.
It was fun to have him so excited.
We let the kids open up their gift from my parents - new pajamas. These gifts are looked forward to every year and they love wearing their new pajamas to bed on Christmas Eve.
The stockings were laid out (the fireplace is in the living room, but we set the tree up in our front room, so they get laid out on the floor).
Santa was coming closer. So we made sure the kids got into bed well before he was near Georgia.
We loved this website and had it up all evening. The kids loved seeing where Santa was and watch the video of Santa and the sleigh (Rudolf was leading), that satellites picked up, as he went to different parts of the world.
I had Logan lay down in my bed and read as he fell asleep. He talked non-stop about Santa coming and bring presents and then he'd go back home. He stopped taking and I looked over - he had stopped talking because he had fallen asleep.
Santa got to Atlanta
and swung over to us. Santa fills stockings and brings one gift - as the kids know the parents in each family makes different deals with Santa (ours - stockings and one gift). I learned this year that one family's deal with Santa is that he mails their gifts (the children are scared to think that someone is coming in their house).
Here is the tree with a little more light - the rest of the gifts are brought down after the kids go to bed, I don't trust some of them to leave them alone. Natalie said that was a good thing because she didn't trust herself to leave them alone.
The kids are allowed to go down in the morning
and open their stockings.
Once everyone is up and stockings are emptied (Logan had asked for blue lollipops and got three),

(more stockings being emptied)

we have breakfast and then go back to open presents.

We go youngest to oldest and take turns until all the gifts are opened. Logan didn't understand why we couldn't open up his present all the way so he could play with it, but that he had to wait and open up more presents.
Jake got, from his siblings, the Lego Star Wars picture dictionary. When I had picked it up, Logan had looked at it for the rest of the day (until Jake came home from school) and when Jake opened it, Logan went over and said "my book." I had to remind him we had gotten it for Jake, but that he could look at it also.
Natalie got the electronic Sudoku she's been wanting, from Robert's parents.

Santa added a book to Alyssa's Harry Potter series.

This past year I finished the horse cross-stitch for Natalie and Robert made a frame for it - I think it turned out great (sorry about the glare from the flash, but is was the clearest pictures).
All the gifts were loved and just what they always wanted.
Since moving to Georgia, our traditional Christmas dinner has been a bratwurst and s'more roast over the fire.
We invited over some friends to join us.

It had started raining Christmas Eve and rained through the night, but cleared up and we had a beautiful mild day - perfect for roasting brats, dogs, and marshmallows over a fire.

A couple of games finished off the evening wonderfully.A great Christmas for all.
While the joy of Christmas, for children, tends to be more towards the gift giving and receiving - as they get older it will move more towards the real reason of Christmas and the best gift ever given: that of Christ coming to earth to be our Savior and Redeemer.
We love this time to focus on and celebrate His birth and beginning of His mission here on earth.
Merry Christmas!