Merry GRINCHmas!!

Christmas Eve - Past and Present

We had a great night on Christmas Eve. I like to take a Christmas Eve family photo and I had really hoped for a fabulous one this year. There are so many things wrong with this one...but at least we got a shot!


This was one of my favorites from a few years ago...

Christmas Eve 2005

This year's Christmas Eve began with an early candlelight service at church. I already broke one of my annual resolutions.....to be punctual!
We attend a very large church; but usually go on Saturday nights so we don't deal with a full house. Christmas Eve was a different story; not getting there early enough landed us in the balcony...

Our kids still got to participate when they invited the little ones up on the stage for the reading of the Christmas story...

When it came time to light the candles, I was thankful we were in the balcony and able to see how spectacular the room looked. (this picture doesn't do it justice)

The funniest part of the evening was when our Pastor (who we LOVE) was talking before the candle lighting, and seemed to forget he was wearing a headset microphone and began using his candle as a microphone. He carried on like this for several minutes...I couldn't stop laughing!

It was a beautiful night and a wonderful celebration of the birth of our Lord.

We went home to eat pizza and watch a movie (The Nativity) and spend some time as a family.

I was missing Christmas Eves past in our old house....but am happy for the memories of when the girls were a little smaller.....

For now, we will just work on making new memories of Christmas Present!