Christmas Eve Program

When we are finished seeing the Christmas lights it is time to come back home for the family Christmas Eve program. How the Christmas Eve program works in Michael's family is: they will sing a few Christmas songs, someone might give a special musical number, we read a few children Christmas story books, read the nativity story and then we all dress up to look like one of the characters from the nativity story for a big group picture (just us kids though). Another thing that we do is open up one gift before going to bed. I know a lot of families do that but in Michael's family one of the kids gets to dress up to look like Santa (just a hat, bag and beard if they want to wear it) and deliver the gifts while the rest of us all lay on the floor and pretend to be asleep. Once we have done all that it is time to go to bed so Santa can come to the house.

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Well for some reason Michael's parents decided to do the Christmas Eve program a little different this year. How it worked is we would sing a few Christmas songs then read a Christmas story book and keep interchanging like that until we were ready to hear the last story which would be the nativity story (I know not too different but it was). We also had a point in the program were we went around telling what our favorite Christmas memories and traditions have been. We would then end the program with sharing our testimonies with one another. Now I think that idea is a great add in to the tradition but for some reason we didn't do it. I was a little disappointed since I was really ready to share mine. So that was all of the program that we did this year. I'm not sure why it got changed but it did. I guess us kids are getting to old to do things like that or something. Now since we didn't take a fun big group picture this year I took lots of fun little ones.Okay, Michael took this picture. I can't help it but I just love using Hope as my pillow. I am lucky enough that she doesn't mind me doing that either. In fact, I think she might like it since it gives her all the love and attention that she wants.It was funny how Toffie picked this spot as hers for the night. I think she just wanted to be close to Julie who was on the piano bench.Julie was our wonderful music accompaniment for our Christmas caroling for the family program. She was so good to play the songs that we wanted to sing and that is without practicing them before hand too. It was really nice to hear Julie play the piano again, I miss that.Maren was the other fun photographer of the night. Aren't you glad to know that I'm not the only one that loves to take pictures? Okay, mine is probably more of a obsession but hey at least I am loving it.Now remember how I said we would do a big group picture? Well Maren had a great idea to do the fun little pictures together. So here is Maren and me holding our cute little and very tired puppies.Michael and I also had to get a family Christmas Eve photo. I guess it isn't only the dogs that were tired. Michael and I were ready to hit the sack after a very long but fun day with the family."Did you hear some sleigh bells? Could Santa be coming to the house already?""QUICK! Pretend you are asleep so we can get our presents."Sadly it wasn't Santa coming to the house yet. We still have to wait a few more hours for him to show up. However it didn't keep Hope away from sitting up by the Christmas tree waiting for Santa to come (or at least until we forced her to go to bed for the night).Well goodnight to one and all and to all a very merry Christmas night.