We had a huge, wonderful meal in the afternoon. Mom made her famous Christmas Eve lasagna, and even made a separate dairy free lasagna for Robert, who's allergic to milk. We enjoyed good food and fellowship around the table with Nana and Papa and Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Kevin; we enjoyed having Kevin's sister, Kelly, join us this year.
The adults opted not to exchange gifts this year, but of course there were still a few for the kids. Camden was very excited about his "Martian Matter" from Nana and Papa:
Even without "real" gifts for the adults, we ended up with two "Mystery Gifts". The mystery gift is a tradition that Mom and Dad started when Jennifer and I were still living at home. There was always one gift under the tree without a name, and we didn't find out who it was for until the last minute; it's always something funny. We've continued the tradition and sometimes Jennifer or I will bring the mystery gift. We never discuss who's doing it each year, but I think this is the first year we've had two.
Mom made this lovely hat for me. She used mouse ears that she still had from when we went to Disney as kids and then attached a pennant that reads "Tour Director". I think that might have been commentary on my bossing everyone around on our recent Disney trip - but I'm going to choose to take it as a compliment on my organizational skills!
Jennifer brought this lovely wooden rooster for Mom:
After opening gifts, we decorated gingerbread men and trees that Jennifer had made from scratch - yummy!
In the evening we attended a Carols, Candles, and Communion Christmas Eve service at our church. We came home and had our birthday party for Jesus. Here's Cullen decorating the cake earlier in the day:
This year I made blonde brownies for the cake. If you look closely you can see that it says "Happy Birthday JESUS" on it, but once the kids were finished with the sprinkles and M&M's, the words were a little hard to make out:
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