Christmas Eve

Is there anything better than Christmas Eve?!  On Christmas Eve we did some fun things and a few of our family traditions.

That morning we took some homemade caramels to friends and when we got back we made graham cracker gingerbread houses.  This is one of my favorite family traditions.  Charlie and I made a house together and so did Joey & Tony.  Well, Joey "helped" until we stopped letting him eat the M&M's.  He wasn't interested after that :)

Charlie crushing candy canes for our roof

 Daddy & a chocolate mouthed Joey--I think we had just told him no more m&m's :)

 Me & a chocolate toothed Charlie

 our finished houses

Once Joey was napping, Charlie and I made cookies for Santa Claus!  Charlie helped measure and even scooped out the cookies and arranged them on the baking sheet.  

Making sure Santa will approve!

That night we did our favorite Christmas tradition!  The boys opened new pajamas and a Disney movie from Nana and Papa Messer.  This year we got The Incredibles!  Charlie has been Dash ever since.  We brought dinner out into the family room and ate while we watched the movie.

New Christmas pajamas

We always have a dinner of different appetizers on Christmas Eve.  It's always fun to try a bunch of different little things.  The boys were so absorbed in the movie we had to keep reminding them to eat.

  

Joey was the funniest this year.  He was so excited about everything that night.  He gasped at everything in the movie and screamed with excitement when we put on his pajamas.  It was so surprising that he was the most excited. 

The last half hour of the movie Joey ran laps around the family room and Charlie was jumping off the couch, fighting pretend bad guys and running "super fast."  Boys and super heroes!  

After the movie was over, we brought out all of the Christmas presents and the boys put them under the tree.  We decided to not fight the battle of opening presents early, so they were hidden until tonight.  After the presents were out, it was time to make a plate for Santa.  Charlie put out cookies and carrots for the reindeer.  Joey was sampling the plate as soon as soon as it hit the table. 

Charlie and I read The Night Before Christmas and then it was bedtime and the wait for Christmas morning began.

Christmas Eve is the most exciting night of the year!