Christmas Eve

With all the family celebrations we have surrounding Christmas, Danny and I carve out Christmas Eve for just us and our kids. And it's awesome. We hung out during the day, cleaning the house and getting ready for the big day. In the afternoon, we started our very first ever batch of Christmas cookies! When Jami's family sent us their awesome Christmas present (a Christmas hat box filled to the brim with everything we would ever need for stellar Christmas cookies) the kids demanded that this year we make Santa cookies. See, in years past Santa has gotten a Little Debbie Christmas cake and a glass of egg nog. I like to think he appreciated the little effort we had to go to. ;) But not this year! Admittedly, I was pretty excited about the Downs' gift too, and wanted to give those amazing cookie presses a try! I found a recipe for sugar cookies on Pinterest that didn't require chilling the dough (oops, forgot about that part and started WAY too late) and we got to work. Well, the cookies turned out AMAZING!! We were excited to decorate them after dinner...

And if the cookies were amazing, dinner was spectacular! Danny donned his apron and produced ribs a la perfection, with cheesy ranch potatoes and asparagus on the side. It was so yummy! We continued the tradition from Danny's childhood and ate dinner by candlelight. 

I don't know where the energy came from (Mom and Dad were already feeling seriously tired), but we cleaned up from dinner and started decorating cookies! It was honestly really fun, and I can't wait to do it in years to come. The cookies, especially frosted, were delicious. Best Christmas cookies I've ever had! And they turned out so beautifully, which makes me even happier. Everyone was on a Christmas Eve high, which was why Danny and I didn't object when the Sophie wanted to take a picture of Mom and Dad, and Johnny said we should kiss while we were eating a cookie! Obviously we were already exhausted... ;)

Finally, it was time for the kids to go to bed! We moved the stockings downstairs and set out cookies for Santa. The kids had even written him a letter earlier in the day, so we were sure to leave that out too. Since we had Christmas in the basement this year, the kids slept in their own beds...and fell asleep quite promptly. 

I wonder what Santa will bring... ;)