Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year, which meant we only met for Sacrament meeting. Which also meant that we got to spend the whole Sunday with Danny! Merry Christmas to us! :) The kids sang in the Children's Choir, so Grandma Candy and Uncle Nick joined us for church. The kids did an awesome job! And the girls looked beautiful in their Christmas dresses, and I love the ties the boys and Danny got this year.

After church, we all went back to our house. Matt and Jenny and their family met us there to enjoy a Christmas Eve brunch together. Of course, we ate an awesome meal of breakfast casserole, over night French toast, sausages, fruit, and a yummy punch. So so good! And the company was excellent. :) It was also our opportunity to give Grandma Candy her present from us girls. Again, it took weeks to come up with an idea...I swear it gets significantly harder every year to get a present for my Mom! But we were excited when we finally decided on a FabFitFun subscription. She'll get four boxes during the year of super fun beauty, fitness, and home stuffs. She loved it! 

Since Danny and I would be taking the kids and starting our trek to California after our Christmas morning, this was the only time we'd get to see Nick before he went back to Boston. It was great to get to see him and spend some time with him. It was a great morning with my family! Just with there were more of us...

The rest of the day was spent getting things pulled together for our trip. But even with a big trip looming ahead of us, we weren't about to neglect our Christmas Eve dinner! Per Danny's family's tradition, we had prime rib by candlelight. And oh my goodness, Danny knocked it out of the park this year with his prime rib! The kids each ate a huge slab of roast beast, and Johnny just couldn't get enough! After all the craziness of the previous few days worth of family events, it was so nice to enjoy a quiet dinner with just our kids. I really savor our Christmas Eve time together. 

Before long, it was time to get the egg nog and cookies out for Santa and get the kids to bed! This year, in response to Santa's letter that he left for them last year, the kids left a letter of their own alongside his cookies and egg nog. They were so excited to see if he would write to them again! We read the Christmas story in Luke 2, kissed our kiddos, and put them to bed. 

Then Danny and I got to work, getting our part of Christmas morning set up for the kids. Once everything was done, we took a quiet moment together and read Luke's letter to us. That is our time to spent with Luke, and we let our hearts feel the sadness and yearning for our special little boy that we miss so much. We cry together, and we tell each other how much we miss Luke. We spend a few minutes talking about a few memories, and how things would be different if he were still here. And then, when our tears are spent, we fold up his letter and put it back in his stocking. Then we close that special, sacred part of our hearts that is reserved for Luke and we smile, ready for another amazing Christmas with our kids. For as much as we miss Luke, we know it wouldn't be fair to let our yearning for him detract from the holiday we have to spend with our living children. Luke wouldn't want it that way, and neither do we. For as painful as it is, I look forward to this special tradition Danny and I have. I love my time with Luke on Christmas Eve as it not only turns my heart to him, but turns my heart to my Savior. I am always reminded that it is because of His birth, life, death, and resurrection that I have the comfort of the promise of being with my Luke again. It is the perfect way to usher in Christmas morning.

Danny and I had just turned out our lights and were ready to call it a night when I heard Joey start crying. He'd been fussy through the day, so I wasn't surprised to hear him. I got up to go give him his binkie and lay him back down, but as soon as I opened the door I could smell something awful. It took about 3 seconds for me to realize what it was. Joey had thrown up! Danny and I worked together to get Joey and his bedding cleaned up, then we laid him back down hoping against hope that that would be the end of it. It wasn't. We spent the next couple of hours with a fussy, puking toddler all the while feeling the mounting anxiety that we were not sleeping, yet would still have Christmas morning and a road trip the next day. 

Danny ended up sleeping in Joey's room with him, both of them falling asleep sometime around 2:00.  I slept in our room with Johnny, falling asleep at about the same time. It was a short, short Christmas Eve night for us! And poor Joey, getting a stomach bug for the first time right in time for Christmas. I went to sleep praying that he'd be fit as a fiddle come morning...