Christmas Eve

With Plan C cancelled and grandma and grandpa unable to come we decided we would have Christmas Eve on Christmas Eve after all. We quickly sent Buddy the Elf, our new Christmas elf who reports all things to Santa, back to the North Pole to request that Santa put us back on the midnight delivery schedule and busied ourselves with last minute errands, wrapping and Christmas feast making. Just one problem... our turkey wasn't thawed yet... so we had all the fixings of a turkey dinner without the actual turkey.


After dinner we read from Luke 2, acted out the nativity, used our chimes to play some Christmas songs (thanks Lindsey), sang some Christmas carols, took pictures of the kids in front of the tree, took our traditional stocking pictures, made sugar cookies, put a plate out for Santa, talked to Grandma and Grandpa on the web cam, said family prayer and tucked the kids in bed.

The kids were so excited they could hardly stand it. Ryan, Katie, Emily and Megan were all sleeping on our closet floor. Chris had strung colorful Christmas lights around the ceiling and it was just like a Christmas fort. Being all together in the glow of the Christmas lights didn't help calm the excitement but soon enough they were all asleep... Ryan and Katie first, who must have used some powerful relaxing techniques to fall asleep so fast with Megan and Emily giggling away right beside them.

Decorating SNOWMAN sugar cookies. One for themselves and one for Santa.

Dan, Scott, Mike Brian (and Ryan) decorating cookies of their own.

Johnson kids in Christmas jammies

Ryan and Luke

Katie and Cousin Leah

Molly and Foster

Megan and Katie

Annie and Leah

Talking to Grandma and Grandpa

Stocking pictures

I love Christmas Eve. It was fun to stay up with everyone and get the house ready for Santa to come. It's so magical. We wrapped presents, cleaned up and the boys played some more ping-pong. Chris got a new ping pong table a month ago ready for the Walton brothers to come. (Seriously, he buys things for himself a month before Christmas?!) Ping Pong tournaments went on most nights -- usually starting at midnight! Finally we were all nestled snug in our beds...