~Day 358: Zero Days Till Christmas

Christmas Eve. Already. I swear we just had Christmas last week. But what a fun time of year. Tonight we went to Alissa and John's house for a wonderful prime rib dinner.  Gathered together was John's parents, Chris and Jim. Bart and Stephanie and Nathan and Erica were there. And of course, the babies... JJ and Sophie. It was a fun night!

We started out eating dinner. The table decorations were beautiful. Alissa did a very nice job.  And the food was so yummy. 

After dinner we had a gift exchange.  Everyone received some nice gifts. The kids really enjoyed it, and were very excited with what they received. Cailee was caught hugging her lip smackers thingies. I think she was the most excited..... Until John's gift showed up. But more on that later. 

Stephanie made this absolutely beautiful blanket for JJ!! First of all, the shape of the owl is amazing. Second, the material she picked out was so great.  Every pattern had some meaning behind it. Like the cars for John. The outdoors pattern for JJ's grandparents. Cameras for Nick. And of course, pink for Stephanie herself. I have never seen a blanket like this. And third, it will be interesting to see if JJ ends up with the blanket, or if Alissa appropriates it for herself. Or if Aunt Shar visits and the blanket mysteriously disappears.  It's just so great! 

Now back to John. He received a Disney train set. His face says it all. He was so excited. It was like he was a little kid again. It was fun to watch him put it together and then threaten anyone with a screwdriver if they breathed on it wrong. It was very a fun way to end the night. 

After Nick and I left their house, we had every intention of getting the kids to bed. But we decided that we needed to go and take gifts throughout the neighborhood. So we jumped in the car and drove around and distributed our gifts. The kids had so much fun getting out of the car and running up to the door, and knocking giving them our small little gift.  The gift really wasn't anything special. But it was still fun to do. I'm so glad the kids had fun giving instead of receiving. 

And right before bed, the girls had to go out and distribute the reindeer food all over the front yard.  The food is made up of dried oatmeal and glitter.  The food was supposed to guide the reindeer to find our house. And the glitter was supposed to shine in the moonlight. The glitter did actually shine, but the picture I took does not show it shining very good. Then the kids promptly got into bed and fell asleep within just a few minutes. I had to play a few more Christmas songs on the piano before the night was over. After tomorrow I'm not going to allow myself to play it until after Thanksgiving next year. 

What a special time of year it is. I hope the kids don't wake up at 5 AM in the morning. Because they will be disappointed when I'm still asleep. Goodnight. I hope Santa finds his way tonight.