The Fulton Five: Christmas Eve at Mom and Dad's House

We accomplished quite a bit on Christmas Eve this year. I felt like I was running out of time to get all of those Christmas "traditions" accomplished this year, but we squeezed a few things in at the last minute. Better late than never I guess!

We spent the morning baking cookies. The kids actually did almost all of the mixing, baking and decorating themselves this year. It was fun to watch them work together and help each other. They were very proud of the finished product.

Next up on the agenda was some last minute shopping. For the past 4 or 5 years, I have taken the kids to the Dollar Store to shop for Grammy, Papa, Pancho, me, and their siblings. It is so much fun to watch them shop. They spend so much time mulling over the treasures (junk) in the store, so they can pick out the perfect gift for each person. Then that go home and wrap them all themselves too. I like this tradition because it gives us a chance to talk a lot about "giving" and the kids have so much fun watching everyone else open the special gift that they picked out just for them, when we exchange presents on Christmas Eve. I am not sure how many more years I am going to get away with going to the Dollar Store, but for now it works great. My kids hate to go shopping from store to store and this is a one stop shop, so they love it!

Then we went to the movie "Tangled" as a family. I am not always a fan of every kid movie, but I really liked this one. In fact, the whole family did! It was so cute and funny too!

After the movie, we had just enough time to get a picture with Santa, before heading to Christmas Eve Mass. The kids got their picture taken at about 4:30 and Santa was leaving the Mall at 6:00 (so we literally were one of Santa's last photos of the year). I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting a picture with Santa this year. Both boys have had basketball practices and tournaments, the kids have had sleepovers, and there was never a time when all three kids were home at the same time! Imagine how happy I was when we had this short window of time between the movie and church to rush down and visit Santa. Lucy was just as excited as I was (of course), but Max was so over it! He DID NOT want a picture with Santa. We literally had to make him (which by the way, I plan on making him do this every year until he gets married!)

Max (too cool for Santa), Lucy (thrilled to be with Santa) and Sam (mostly happy to be wearing the Pittsburg Steelers Hat he had just opened from his cousins)

Lucy also loved the candy cane and reindeer antlers she got from Santa

After Santa pictures, we rushed home, got dressed in our Christmas clothes and headed to the children's Mass at St.Paul. It was such a beautiful Mass, with many of the St. Paul kids acting out the Nativity. My kids loved watching it.

After Mass, we all headed over to my Mom and Dad's for our Christmas Eve tradition. We always eat my Mom's delicious homemade Clam Chowder, then we open our gifts from Grammy and Papa and we give them a few gifts too! It is always such a fun night.

Lucy and her Papa,

as we were getting ready to start opening gifts!

My Dad got some lovely gifts from the kids like, coffee mugs, candy, and a piggy bank! My parents do such a great job of acting so excited about each gift.

(By the way, we do get my parents REAL gifts, that are not from the Dollar Store too!)

. . .the boys got a little hyper waiting for Mom and I to finish the dishes.

"Brother Wrestling" is a common occurrence with these two.

Sam almost has him!

Somehow, the older brother still always finds a way to win . . . for now!

I just noticed that we never got a family picture with all of us dressed up. The boys changed out of their church clothes second that we got home. Oh Well!

My Mom's beautiful tree!

Sam giving Grammy a big hug to thank her for all of the cool gifts.

My parents totally spoil my kids!

Lucy was so proud of the Army Knife she picked out for her Daddy at the Dollar Store!

I was helping Max put batteries in some of his gifts.

. . .and this is what Sam picked out for his Dad at the Dollar Store.

He thought it was soooo funny!

Lucy got so excited about every gift that she opened!

She was full of "Thank You's", hugs, oohs and ahhs all night.

Sam got a very cool electric guitar.

Its made out of cardboard, but looks and plays like a real guitar. He was playing it all night.

When we got home, Lucy couldn't wait to leave out some of the cookies that she had made that day for Santa. Of course, she had to leave some milk to go with the cookies and some carrots for the reindeer too.

Sam was a little skeptical this year, he set up a video camera pointing at the cookies in hopes of catching Santa on camera. That way he would know once and for all if he should believe, and lets just say that Max is a teenager in an 11 year olds body and leave it at that. Pancho and I had all kinds of hilarious ideas for Sam's video camera, but in the end, he hadn't actually turned the camera on, and I had run out of energy to be funny at that point.