Christmas Eve

This year, we decided to switch things up a little bit, and went to the five o'clock service on Christmas Eve. It's the "family" service, so when your kids is misbehaving, it's no big deal. This meant we'd have to eat dinner with mine and Andy's parents as soon as we could after we all made it to our house from church. This posed a meat-making problem for me! Not like it was really an issue, but it meant I had to do something new :) I stuck a ham in the oven when we left the house, and it was perfectly done when we got home! Fun times. Service at my church is typically an hour long, at Andy's parent's it's 45 minutes. This time, ours was 45 minutes, and their's was an hour 15 minutes! We ended up sitting down for dinner at 7:30. Andrew behaved pretty well... always showing off for the grandparents! I made a buche de noel for dessert, I love that thing. Not my best, but still so tasty.

Andrew got to open one present before bed, and it was a pair of Elmo pajamas! He was so happy with them. He changed and modeled for his grandparents before they left, and he headed to bed. He went into bed, and Andy and I did some quick arranging before I ran back to church to play at the 11 o'clock service.
I was in the RCW Christmas play this year, and in my scene, we were unpacking Christmas things in the attic, and needed a nativity. I offered up my nativity set, since I wasn't planning to put it up with Andrew and his clumsy hands around. I offered it up as a prop, and the church thought the size of it was so great, the borrowed it to display in front of the pulpit all season. I hadn't noticed it during the Family Service, but when I was up in the balcony for the 11 o'clock, I could see how there was a spotlight on the stable the entire service, and the sanctuary lights dimmed most of the time. It was absolutely beautiful, and i felt so honored that it was my family's nativity!

and fun fact: My Granny bought that nativity in CA, before they moved back to MS after my grandfather died, so early-mid 1960's. She passed it on to my parents when they got married, and my mom passed it on to me after we got married and didn't have one! Third generation, isn't that cool?