Our Christmas Eve 2012

As the kids get older, Christmas is becoming as fun as I remember it as a child. All of the anticipation, excitement and pure joy of childhood is contagious and really brings the magic out for all of us. While we certainly do talk about the fact that we are celebrating Jesus' birthday, it's hard to not find ourselves mainly focused on the gifts and the imminent arrival of Santa. Between the shopping and the cookie making and all of the wrapping and exchanging of presents, it's hard to breathe for a few weeks, but when it all comes together beautifully and the giggles and shrieks break out, I always know I wouldn't want it any other way.

We are fortunate in that we don't have to travel for the holiday. My in-laws are non-practicing Jewish so we don't have to try and juggle both families for holidays. We actually still do exactly what I did as a kid on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. It's worked for 35 years, why change now right? Roman and I have often discussed staying home on Christmas Eve, but even though it's hard to feed our kids at the traditional meal that my grandmother is in charge of (it's all white except for the jello my mom brings), we keep going back because it's tradition. We always attend Mass with my parents and then proceed to one of my mom's siblings houses for dinner.

Braeden and Maggie after my Aunt's cat

Evan and Aunt Stacy

My Grandmother blessing each person 

My Mom and her Mom

Mag's first pierogi

Boys being silly in front of my Aunt's tree

Santa Grampa

Maggie's new book

Jason and Roman

Me and my Mom

After we have dinner and exchange a few gifts with my mom's family, we stop at my dad's parents house on the way home for dessert. My grandmother always makes peppermint pie with hot fudge on Christmas Eve especially for me (so she says anyway). When we had little babies we sometimes skipped dessert, but now our kids can all handle staying up later and being off schedule so we fill our bellies with sweets and then head home to quickly get ready for Santa's arrival and head off to bed. We made cookies with our friends a couple of nights before so we left those out with some eggnog, read a few books and headed to dreamland to envision sugarplums dancing in our heads.