Our Christmas Eve Traditions

As I said in my Christmas post, this year is our first year as a small family doing our own traditions.  However, there are a few traditions we have carried over from our extended family.  Grammy's Jammies is one of them.  When my mom was here last month, she left pajamas for all the kids which they open Christmas Eve.  Then they each get to open one gift.  The girls were definitely happy Grammy didn't forget them even though they're getting older.  One of their favorite traditions.

Then while Brian and I prepared Christmas (aka finished wrapping presents and making one of our "change in plans" homemade gifts), Xoe and Xanthe were amazing, as usual, and left cookies for Santa and got him to bed.  They all thought it would be fun to sleep in the same room so they bunked it in Xanthe's room which has 3 beds in there.  The next picture is Christmas right after Santa came. ;)

Our Christmas Eve Festivities

Me, Annie, Xanthe, Laura (Annie's sister visiting from Washington), Jason (Annie's husband) and Brian

Christmas Eve was spent with my dear friend, Annie Tintle and her family.  We love their family.  They are moving in June and we will be devastated.  Seriously. I get super sad when people leave but I've never had a kindred spirit like Annie.  So, of course we want to spend every waking moment together.  Only catch? She lives 1 1/2 hours from me.  But we try every minute to get together.

Harrison (Annie's oldest), two elders from our church and Xoe.

Xoe and Xanthe took a bunch of selfies on my phone.  How beautiful are they? I just had to post for my memories.

Spencer loves her kids!  You can't see Xanthe but she's trapped underneath.  Those are her black and white leggings.

Annie has caught on that caroling is becoming lost. No one wants to go.  No one wants people to come.   She was determined so she came up with something new and improved.  Mexican caroling!  It's a fun way and the only way she'll get her kids to go.  Singing Feliz Navidad complete with ukeleles, maracas and drums.  Next year sombreros will be added in. I have to tell you I was nervous at first but once we got out there, everyone LOVED it.  No one felt awkward and two American houses turned into 3 extra German houses.  The Germans even knew the song. :)  The first video is our practice. It was a bit rough and we got better, but this one is cute cuz you can see the kids dancing and singing.  

Check out this video.  Brian even got into it. Right at the beginning. Then he saw me recording and scooted back. Haha!

After hanging at Annie's, we headed home for our own Christmas Eve traditions.

Best Gift Ever!!!

Someone knows me too well.  This showed up on our door a few weeks ago. This person obviously knew I was loving the Coca-Cola promotion where they wrote people's names on Coke bottles.  I've looked around for friends' names and my own.  But of course I never found any of our names.  See the ones I actually took pictures of below.

A dear friend, whom I still don't know the identity of, ordered this off a website and sent it as a fun Christmas gift to us.  You have no idea how much it made my day!