Christmas Eve Festivities

Christmas Eve is always a big event at my mom's house.  She has a bunch of traditions that the kids and adults look forward to every year. Since this was our "on" year (meaning the kids were in town, not with their own in-laws), everyone was in town and X&X were able to be here as well.  They most look forward to the traditions at Grammy's house I think the most out of anyone. 

Normally we do caroling, drinking hot chocolate/apple cider by the fire as we listen to a Christmas story, then all the kids open their pajamas from Grammy.  We did, however, change things up a bit because Nanette was in Camarillo (about 2 hours away) for Christmas Eve and would be coming Christmas Day.  This year we did those things on Christmas Day and on Christmas Eve had a great Soup Dinner with everyone who was in town.  Then we loaded up into cars and went driving over to Eagle Hills to see all the Christmas lights.

Afterward, we all came back to the house and Grammy gave the kids her pajamas to open.  We've now deemed them "Grammy's Jammies."  All got dressed and we sat to watch The Nativity Story.

I only got pictures of us sitting down to watch the movie, can you believe that?  Hopefully I can some day get pictures from someone else.

Heather and James

Ben & Katie, their daughter Ruby, and Scott

Spencer, Lulu & Ollie waiting to watch the movie.

Max, Xoe & Porter

Spencer & Xanthe

Grampa & Eliza

Spencer-I know it's a bit redundant of a picture but I love this picture. He was having a good time playing on the bean bag with Lulu (only 7 months younger than him).

Amber, Lily, Brian, Max, Xoe, Porter, Xanthe, Michael & Grammy (sorry this isn't such a great picture of everyone).

Then we put all the kids to bed (including Brian since he was really sick) and I helped Heather finish my dad's present.  We had to make four of these pairs of Yo Gabba Gabba pajama pants, one for my dad and 3 for other presents Heather was giving.  This project had gone wrong the past two days so we were hoping we were actually going to get it done.

At about 12:00 a.m. I started to be Santa Claus.  I pulled everything that I had out and realized that I had wrapped EVERYTHING, whereas my other sisters had laid quite a few things out.  But mine looked boring so I started adding bows to everything and figuring out where to lay it all.  It took longer than I expected but I think the kids would like it.  Amber's family's stuff is on the left, mine is on the right. Ruth and Scott's are across from us (you can see it in another picture below).

I never explained my wrapping system.  It's a pet peeve of mine when children count gifts under the tree and whine that so-and-so got more gifts than the other.  Many years ago before the girls were even old enough to know about Santa, a friend of mine shared with me her system, something I've adopted over the years. This year I wasn't going to do it because X&X no longer "need it" (if you get my gist... can't say it out loud just in case a child reads my blog.).  But before I started wrapping they asked if I was going to still do it this year.  Those girls just really love traditions.  

The system is this (stop reading if you'd get bored)--- Choose wrapping paper for each child and wrap all their gifts in that same wrapping paper.  Don't label them.  Then the second child has all their presents wrapped in a different wrapping paper, kept unlabeled. The kids have no idea which ones are theirs until the day of. I used to hand them an envelope where they would find a swatch of their wrapping paper and then run to find the gifts.  This year I just put them all out on their couch.  I also started numbering them... there were gifts I wanted the girls to open at the same time because they were the same gifts.  I didn't want one of the girls opening something and giving it away to the other one.  But I never number it consecutively. There may be a #"1" gift, and there may be a #"518" gift. If I did it consecutively then they'd know how many gifts they got.  

Kind of a duplicate... but wanted to show how I set out their clothes and rolled their pants with ribbon.

Spencer's loot.  I didn't even do a stocking cuz he didn't understand. All he cared about is the unwrapping. I literally wrapped EVERYTHING.  A little bag of Teddy Grahams. Two already opened bags of Oreos.  And a couple of bouncy balls. He was in heaven.  You'll see tomorrow.

I finally went to bed at 3:30 a.m.

Seeing the Christmas Lights at the Los Angeles Temple

During Christmastime it's a favorite to visit the temple lights. They adorn the grounds with some pretty impressive light displays.  This year we stopped by after we saw The Muppets with the Schultz family since the theater was somewhat nearby.

Here's a link to a full shot of the temple. I didn't get any of this view (in fact these are Nan's and Brian's pictures), but thought I'd post one for my friends who don't know what it looks like.

Spencer & Brian

Myles (Nan's husband), Grammy Schultz, back of Grandpa Schultz and Xoe striking a pose

Xanthe, Rocky, Piper, Porter, Archer and Xoe (don't know who those people are in the back)

Piper, Nan, Myles, Rocky & Archer (cute li'l family)

And of course I had to jump in one!  (Me, Archer and Nan)

It's a Muppet's Show Tonight

My family kind of has a love affair with the Muppets.  It's something we grew up watching... and somehow we identified with the characters and the special guests.  My older brothers, Ben and Scott, really should be writing this post. They could give a better tribute to it than myself.  You can even see hints of the Muppets throughout "Yo Gabba Gabba" (the TV show they have), indirectly (some of the music and characters), and directly (Paul Williams' guest starring singing "Rainbow Connection"). Jim Henson and Paul Williams are pretty big celebrities to us.  Am I wrong, Scott, but you pretty much worship them right? :)  (I personally love Paul Williams because of his hand in the music for The Carpenters, but that's just me. We love him all the same)

Porter, Piper & Rocky-(this is the picture we actually took that night. The one above is just from the internet)

So, when the new movie was coming out, it only seemed fitting that our whole family see it together.  And of course we had to go to El Capitan theater in downtown Hollywood.  Wikipedia's description of its history says it better than I can "El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is owned by Pacific Theatres and operated by the Walt Disney Company. It serves as the venue for many of Walt Disney Pictures' movie premieres."

El Capitan has a special place in my heart. I spent many years living in the Hollywood area, and when I didn't live there, I at least worked there. The girls and I attended so many movie premieres there and all their events. When they were premiering Princess Diaries 1 and 2, we attended the full-out tea parties with the princesses in attendance and the pre- and post-shows too!  Disney usually goes all out to premiere these movies here and it's a regular every year for Nightmare Before Christmas. I have attended many-a-showing of Nightmare, including the first one when Danny Elfman and many of the famous actors gave a Q&A panel afterward. Now it's kind of a cult following with people dressing up as the characters and coming to watch the show, year after year.

Didn't get any pictures myself (bummer for me) so I'm using Nanette's pictures (Nan, wanna just copy this post? haha).  They're fun for my family back home to see themselves there, so I'm posting almost all of them.

Ruth & Scotty!

Archer, Nancy (Grammy), Harry (Grandpa), Lulu

James, Heather & Lily

Waitin for the show to start!

Myles & Archer

Piper (with Ruby, right? and Porter)

Sam Schultz and new bambina, Seattle

Lily, Amber, Eliza and Rocky

Eliza and Rocky in front, Max and Xanthe (second row), Sharla, Mossi, Ryan (making the silly face) and Heather. And you can kind of see the only picture of Brian right behind Ryan.

Ollie, Xoe & Xanthe (I just love this picture at how excited they all were with their popcorn boxes, and the fun of the characters and bubbles during the pre-show)

Afterwards, Disney usually always has some sort of display.  For the Nightmare show, they usually always have models of the claymation sets for you to see how they did it, or they'll have interactive games for the kids. This year they had sets from the movie (Kermit's office, and Miss Piggy's dressing room) which was fun, with Miss Piggy's costumes on display too. They had this backdrop to take pictures in front.  We kind of monopolized it at one point. I'm sorry for the horrible pictures.  For as many photographers and nice cameras we have in our family, no one remembered to bring one.

Cousins!

Scott's family

Trying to get a picture of the whole family... not happening.  haha.

And of course, US!

After the show, we started walking along Hollywood Boulevard. I was dumbfounded that my own girls who had been here a LOT of times, acted like they had never seen the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Graumann's Chinese (Mann's) Theater and Ripley's Believe it or Not. Kinda made me wonder if doing all the fun things we do with our kids even makes a difference (I know there's a great psychological answer to it like it bonds us, etc. but at that moment I was a little exasperated).

And of course, true to form for X&X, all they wanted to do was souvenir shop while walking to find something to eat. (This is Xoe)

(Xanthe in green)

Xoe, Xanthe & Rocky

Xoe, Rocky & Xanthe (this was outside the Disney store shop and they thought it was so fun!)

I could see how much all the kids were enamored with Hollywood and since I love it so much too, I told the kids that I would take them all down to walk around and take pictures and most importantly, to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. You'da thought I'd promised Disneyland.

Schultz Brothers and Sisters of mine, did I leave any details out?  I need Amber to post her Schultz Heritage about that day. It was classic! :)