Christmas 2022: Christmas Eve Part One

I am halfway through the Christmas posts. If you don't care to read them, just come back in a few days and the blog will be back to horses as usual.

A long time family tradition of ours is to decorate Christmas cookies the afternoon of Christmas Eve. I bake the cookies ahead of time, sort them out onto plates for everyone who wants to participate, and then supervise the decorating.

This year I just was not feeling it. I was tired, I was grieving, I hadn't had a moment to make those cookies ahead of time, I was absolutely overwhelmed.

Cole called me and offered to make the dough and Emily was willing to cut out and bake the cookies.

I still felt overwhelmed at the thought of decorating the cookies, but I knew the first hurdle was over. Besides, it really is a favorite tradition of my kids and grands (and me!) 

We all gathered over at Curt's home and again with help from Emily and Vanessa, we got the cookies sorted, the frosting and sprinkles out, and then I gave a few instructions. (The biggest being,"No licking your knives or fingers and then sticking them back into the frosting!")

I may have dragged my feet in getting the cookie decorating underway, but I ended up really happy that we were doing it. Maybe it was the normalcy, maybe it was the link back to years and years of cookie decorating on Christmas Eve, who knows? My spirits lifted and I was able to laugh and enjoy myself.

We didn't worry about meticulously decorating our cookies, we just had fun (and a few knives were licked and no one was harmed.)

Trinity and JC's cookies were the "safest" to eat. You knew that there had been no knife or finger licking from them! Haha!

Susie, on the other hand, had clear evidence that her knife had made its way into her mouth.

Ian's cookies turned out nice!

Kate passed the clean mouth test.

Lukie got to eat all his own cookies (if you catch my meaning...)

Sweet Cambria did a lovely job and seemed to like green! 

I'd brought some gold sprinkles and Mila liked those the most.

Titan's cookies match his socks and apron!

After the cookie decorating was over, we hung out as a family in the house - it was still way too cold to go outside for any activities.

We played board games and watched Christmas movies together.

And we hung out and chatted. Lisa had also joined us for the day, and while she was quiet and very subdued, I was so glad she was with family and not alone.

Then we had a big surprise for Craig. We started gathering everyone into Curt and Vanessa's family room,

pulling the kids up from the basement and the gamers from the kitchen table. And then we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. With a bewildered look he said, "But my birthday is in July!" 

Yes it is, and last July he turned 70. He said he did not want a celebration, so we didn't have a big party for him. But, we did decide we needed to recognize that milestone birthday and so we made him a book.

Every family member wrote him something - a favorite memory, something they liked about him, etc. and then sent what they'd written to me. I printed them out, put them in clear sleeves, and compiled them into in a binder.

Was Craig ever surprised! He sat and read it several times while the family was with us. And I love how the grands couldn't wait for him to read what they had written. (For example, Lukie wrote, "I like to beat Boompa playing Llama Llama and to bake cookies with him.")

By now it was time for our next family Christmas Eve tradition - pizza for dinner! Todd and Curt went to pick it up while the rest of us straightened things up and got ready for two more family Christmas Eve traditions - the PJ elf to arrive and the family Nativity reenactment. 

In which a camel makes a wrong turn. Stay 'tooned!