We had our traditional Olsen family Christmas Eve dinner and then acted out the nativity. It was a little chaotic as always. Oliver and Elsa fought over the part of Mary (Oliver just wanted to hold the baby the whole time). Simon just wanted to climb in and out of the manger and hit things with the shepherd's staff. But it's always nice to gather around the piano and sing Christmas hymns and read the nativity story, even amongst the chaos. I love carrying on so many traditions with my own children that I experienced as a child.
I made Christmas crackers/poppers for place cards at dinner, similar to the ones I made for Thanksgiving. But this time I hid a clue (and some chocolates) in with the confetti. The clue led the kids to the location of a special gift. Christmas Eve pajamas! Each of their gifts were hiding in a different place in the house. We might have to make this a new tradition. It was pretty fun.
Then it was chocolate fondue time! I had expected the girls to delay going to bed after we finished the fondue, but they were eager to set out cookies for Santa and get to bed so he would come. We read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Amelia, Elsa and Oliver all slept in the same room. Ben and I stayed up with my parents and watched "It's a Wonderful Life" while doing some last minute wrapping and assembling. Ben and my dad attempted to assemble this huge ride on tractor/construction toy I got at Costco for the boys several weeks earlier, but it was missing multiple key parts so we had to give up on it. I knew the boys would have loved it so that was disappointing, but luckily they didn't know anything was missing and were thrilled with everything else they got.
