Christmas Eve

Since we weren't going to Salt Lake to be with family or St. Louis to be the Blairs for Christmas, we spent Christmas Eve with our other family the Browns. We all love spending time with them. The girls especially. Amy is our favorite kidsitter (can't call it babysitting to Emi and Ada - "because we're not babies!"). She is so great with the girls and they adore her. The girls even love hanging out with the three boys, Jason, Stephen and Mark. It's like having their cousins right around the corner.

We had a fun evening with dinner, lots of treats, stories, music and games. The missionaries serving in our ward also came over, Elder Stanford and Elder McQuinn. After dinner we had a little "program" of stories and singing. Then we played Christmas carols on the hand bells. Emi and Ada were the leaders, choosing which song to play and giving everyone their music. It was quite a show!

After that we played a traditional English game where a prize is wrapped in lots of layers and each layer has something (either a piece of candy or a forefit I think they called it), we played the kids version where each layer had a piece of candy. So you pass the package around the circle while music is playing and when the music stops the person with the package unwraps the top layer and gets whatever is in it. This continues until you get to the prize. Emi and Ada weren't quite sure about this game at first and didn't want to end up with the package. Then once they saw what was going on, they were all for it! I think there were 20-30 layers. It was funny to watch. Ada ended up with the prize, a "Cars" theme ball.

The Brown's have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve and it's always the same thing. They included each of us in their tradition, so we were each given a present to unwrap - new pajamas! We usually let the girls choose one present to open Christmas Eve as well, but since I hadn't wrapped anything yet, gratefully this got to take it's place!

Sadly after that it was time to go. "Santa" had lots to do! Like I said, I hadn't wrapped a single thing and the girls were all wound up - so I knew it was going to be a late one trying to get them in bed and asleep, wrapping presents and then playing Santa.

I'm so grateful to the Browns and all they do for us. Thanks Paul, Alison, Amy, Jason, Stephen, Mark for being our family and letting us spend a wonderful Christmas Eve with you! Love you guys!