Christmas Eve 2019

Look at those beautiful blue eyes. Oslo, you handsome devil. Don't let him fool you, he's darling, but he didn't let me get a single thing done yesterday to prepare for the festivities of Christmas Eve today. Oh well.

Aaron took the day off today, so all was saved. :)

We were supposed to have a full house for dinner. We stay home every Christmas Eve and put on our Bethlehem dinner. We have an open-door policy for family and friends, that they are always welcome to come too. It's just my favorite tradition and I want to do it the way I want to do it, so we have it here and invite anyone to participate if they want to. So this year, we were supposed to be having Aaron's two brothers and their families, and Aaron's sister and her family, and Aaron'r parents.

A few day ago, Cal came down with a high fever, about 104. He had it for a few days, and Tylenol wasn't really helping. We took him in to the Dr to be tested for Strep. He does not have strep, and he does not have an ear infection. But he did wake up fever free a few days after, but with a really croup-y cough. Then on Sunday night Ruby woke up in the middle of the night throwing up. I was sure she had what Cal had and thought it was going to be another five day long illness. So Aaron called his family to warn them that there was a possibility that we'd have sick kids at our house on Christmas Eve, and they should maybe have a back up plan in mind. Well, as it turns out, Kelly and Esther also had sick kids at their house, and so did Stacey. And Ryan said that their son Ilo catches every germ he comes in contact with so they'd rather not risk it. And Aaron's parents were a maybe, depending on how the kids were doing Christmas Eve morning. So all the sudden, instead of lots of house guests, we were free and clear to just have a relaxing, slow paced Christmas Eve. I thought I was going to have to spend the whole day running around trying to get the house clean, but if no one was coming over, then the house didn't really matter.

And this morning all the kids woke up feeling perfectly healthy. So yay! Aaron decided last minute that he wanted to run to American Fork and buy a used snow scooter from a lady up there. Ollie really really really wanted a snow scooter, and we had decided that they were too expensive for what they were, and hadn't gotten it. Until Aaron found this used one for $15 and decided to go for it. So he and I took Oslo and Cal and drove up to American Fork and left Lincoln here to baby-sit the other kids. (Perks of having a 12 year old!!) It was a fun morning. We got the snow scooter, it's practically brand new, it's never even been ridden. The family was given one and they already had one, so it was out of the box, but pretty much basically new. Score!

On the way our from there, we passed a Costco. And I had Aaron stop, because the Costco in Spanish Fork hadn't had any salmon when I went there yesterday, and Salmon is the main dish in our Bethlehem dinner. We'd been going to stop at Smiths, but I knew I'd have to pay more for less salmon there. So when I saw Costco I knew we had to see if they had salmon. They did! And Aaron also decided while we were in Costco, that we really needed to get the kids jammies for Christmas Eve. (I had decided to forego that expense because I was running out of budget, but since we'd finished up the shopping, Aaron decided we could do jammies after all.) So we ran around like crazies trying to find the right sizes for all the people. Whew.

Then we stopped in at Aaron's parents house, because Debbie was hemming some curtains for underneath Adelia's bed, which is one of her Christmas presents. When they saw that Cal was healthy, they decided that they'd come for dinner after all.

After that quick stop, we went to the grocery store in Salem to pick up the rest of the food we needed for tonight and tomorrow. Then home again. We picked up the main level of the house. And I cooked the pocketbread while Aaron made pudding. We decided to switch up our pudding tradition, so instead of eating pudding for breakfast, we were going to have it after dinner, and whoever got the nut could pass out the wrapped jammies that evening. We figured this would take less time and be less chaotic than trying to make pudding Christmas morning and having a kid pass out all the Christmas day presents.

Chuck and Debbie got there just a few minutes before the salmon was finished cooking. So, good timing. We had an amazing dinner. I always love the Bethlehem dinner. Then we did the Nativity story. This year Adelia was Mary, Ollie was Joseph, Oslo was baby Jesus, Cal was an angel, Lincoln and Ivan were wisemen, Ruby was a sheep, Aaron was a shephard, Chuck was the narrator, Debbie was baby Jesus's baby sitter when he wasn't on set, and I was the photographer.

After that we opened presents from G&G Swan, had pudding (Ollie got the nut), opened jammies, had our music concert (Linc played songs on the piano, Ivan did Ukulele, Adelia did piano, and Chuck accompanied while we all sang carols and hymns.) And then it was jammies and bed for the kids.

Chuck reading The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

Aaron and I had mostly done all the wrapping, which was nice. We just had a few things to finish up.....like Ruby's kitchen that we had deliberately left until Christmas Eve because of the amount of space it would take up under the tree. Then we did the stockings and laid them out on the couches, and that was that.