Christmas Eve

This last Christmas season we had in Texas has been nothing short of awesome and Christmas Eve was no exception. It fell on a Sunday and it was perfect! 

  I kinda wish Christmas Eve was on Sunday every year. It ensured we got everything we needed taken care of before the Sabbath and the one hour sacrament meeting of beautiful Christmas music along with partaking of the sacrament was the perfect way to usher in the special spirit of Christmas Day. Our ward choir sang an incredible rendition of O Holy Night and me along with about half of the ward had tears streaming down our faces because of how beautiful it was and how strong the Spirit was testifying of the birth of our Redeemer. It set a wonderful tone for the rest of the holiday.

We came home from church and hung out and waited for our cousins from Waco to arrive!

We ate a bunch of delicious food, played and watched some basketball before we got serious about our gingerbread house making!

  

This is a pretty competitive Whitehouse/Monsen tradition back in Utah where it started when we lived in Connecticut, but they have kept it going strong and we have been able to compete in two of those competitions. We were going to try and compete long distance last year, but the kids were not digging the parents doing all the work, so we let the competitiveness go and just make it a fun family free for all and it was a lot of fun! 

Before we ate dinner (because we were all still full from our delicious appetizers) we pulled out a bunch of random stuff to do a reenactment of the nativity. It isn't picture perfect with my messy house and kids all over the place, but we read Luke 2 and did our best to remind our littles of why we were together doing the celebrating that we were doing. It was a little crazy, but a huge success!

 Joseph and Mary 

(and their donkey in the next picture).

Here is the angel proclaiming to the shepherds of the miracle that had come to pass that ordinary night in Bethlehem long ago- 

We have an amazing video of Eve repeating the words from dad and it is to die for.

And next is one of the wise men who sought the Savior and found him-

 Although it was crazy like I mentioned, I hope these kiddos always remember why we celebrate Jesus' birthday. It's not just that He was born, but that He lived a perfect life and fulfilled His mission of atoning for ALL of our sins, was killed and LIVES. This is everything. Because he LIVES, so can we. Forever. With those we love the very most. Like these most adorable children: 

We rounded out our awesome night with pickle hunting and Christmas jammies!

Thad came up victorious again this year after a few hints from Dad and was over the moon about his $5 and chocolate he won! 

How cute are these Monsen cousins in their Christmas jammies? I love that they all love each other, it makes me so happy!

The Monsens were headed back up to Waco by 7:30 p.m. so we did a quick clean up so Santa wouldn't come to a messy house and the kids exchanged sibling gifts. They were so excited to finally open some sort of present! 

 Wes gave to Eve

 Thad gave to Wes

And Eve gave to Thad

And they loved that they had presents from each other that they had picked out, paid for (minus Eve), and wrapped (with a little help from dad) all on their own. It was so cute to see them think about each other and not pick out something they would like, but thought about what the other person would like. I wanted to intervene sometimes, but they all ended up loving what they got from each other. I love them! 

And last, but certainly not least:

COOKIES (and carrots)

And STOCKING PLACEMENT 

They were super excited to get to bed to see what the morning would hold. 

I love those perfect faces that mean the whole world to me. Christmas is so much better with them in my life. 

Brian and I decided we will make it a tradition to watch It's Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve after doing it last year and it was awesome. I love that show and the message it has. We too were excited to see what the Big Man would bring, so after our movie we hustled up to bed to make sure that he wouldn't skip our house with the lights on! Merry Christmas Eve!