Christmas Eve

Before we had kids, our Christmas eve tradition was to go to midnight mass. It was beautiful - the beginning of mass was dim because the lights were out and it was light only by the Christmas trees on the altar and candles. Now that we have kids, we're trying a couple of the earlier services to see which one works best for us.  This year we tried the 4pm mass.  We headed over to my parents house after lunch so we could put Karsten down for a nap before mass and get all of the presents and Madison unloaded.

Karsten thought the Santa versus Trees checkers game was fun to stack. He would also tell you that those were not Santas, they were frostys.  Don't try to disagree - you'll never win. :)       

Beautiful tree! We must have all been very good this year (although to be fair, there were gifts under the tree for two other sides of the family for future celebrations).


Liam hanging out in the swing before church.


Then we headed to mass.  The church gets so crowded for Christmas masses that we have to go WAY early.  By WAY early, I mean that my parents left at 2:30 (for the 4pm mass) to save seats for us.  We showed up at church around 3:15 and by 3:30 the church was full so father started the mass.  

After church we always take family pictures while we're all still dressed up. Madison even made it into the picture - and she looked at the camera!  Well done Madison. :)




I love this mischievous smile.  He got such a kick out of Chuck's dancing santa hat.


Looking handsome in his sweater vest after church.




We had happy hour while we waited for dinner to get done.  I don't recall chocolate being on the happy hour menu; however, Karsten has a way of getting a 'special' menu from Grandma!




Enjoying happy hour with Papa.  Karsten was eating a Milky Way candy bar - he called it a yonky yay but when we laughed and started calling it a yonky yay, he did NOT approve.  He could tell that we were saying it wrong.


More fun in the dancing santa hat with some evidence of that yonky yay around his mouth.


He even got a festive new cup for happy hour.  He really enjoyed drinking milk out of frosty.  We sang frosty the snowman a few times to go along with the cup.


Chatting with Liam.


Liam's second picture with Santa.


Then it was time for Karsten to get ready for bed.  Santa had asked for milk and M&Ms for the reindeer, so we put it out and went to bed.  I'm not sure Karsten really understood why we were leaving milk and candy out for Santa, but he went along with it.  Next year he'll get it more.