Christmas Eve!

 Christmas Eve is full of family traditions for us all.  Here are a few of our family traditions:

Like many of you, we put cookies and milk out for Santa.  This year, Kyle wanted to write a note and take a pic of the excitement!  Kaylee and Konnor were VERY excited for Santa to come!  The magic is alive and strong at the Brothersen house!

Below: The crew that came to Christmas Eve dinner!  It is hard to believe, that EVERYONE is looking at the camera and smiling.  There was no photoshopping here!

 Every year we do a Nativity Puppet Show.  (I made the puppets at a Relief Society Activity!)  We do this, so it is fun for the kids, and we ALL can remember the REAL reason for this beautiful holiday!  Emily was awarded the most enthusiastic puppeteer!

 We also play a few Christmas songs with the chimes!  

(no pics of that, we were all too focused on our notes!)

We draw names for Christmas gifts, and we try to do "homemade" gifts or something more personalized.  And my favorite gift this year was from Private Jake Cox serving in Afghanistan, who happens to be my brother-in-law!  He drew Kim this year, and he made her a video!  He sang a song, told her how much he loved her and missed her, etc... Needless to say... We ALL were crying!  Darn you Jake! :)

 I make a Christmas Roll Wreath.  This year Tyler took one out and ate it before I could tie the bow and take a pic.  I need to blog about things like this ya know!  I tied the bow over the big GAP he left.  I don't think he will steel a roll before we take pics again.  ha ah.  -To his defense, he said to me, with a mouth full of hot roll, "How was I supposed to know you were going to take a picture of it?!"  I replied with, "well, I am a blogging maniac, and I LOVE food, so I take pics of all the fun things we eat!"

 Here is part of the spread we had!  Chocolate dipped oreos on sticks, fruit kabobs, stuffed mushrooms, shrimp cocktail, red velvet cupcakes, sugar cookies, pasta salad, green layered salad, Ham, mashed potatoes, etc...!

 Our neighborhood started a new tradition this year!  We lit the whole neighborhood with luminaries!  We decorated ours before we put them out on the sidewalk.  It was fun!  We went driving around the neighborhood to look at all of the luminaries, and it was SOOOO neat!  There was a peaceful and tender feeling in the air.  The kids were piled in the truck, and instead of them being crazy and loud looking at lights, they were so sweet!  They kept saying, "wow, look at all of those!  It is so pretty!"  Ryan even said, "Holy guacamole, that is cool!"  Families of many religions put them out on their sidewalks, and it made the neighborhood seem connected and unified in a peaceful remembrance of the real meaning of Christmas!  I hope we do this every year!

 I love to decorate tables and do place settings.  Bulbs, white lights, and pine-cones were a theme for the tables this year.

Merry Christmas to all of you out in the cyber world!  Our Christmas eve was a fun one, we hope yours was too!