The Sounds of Christmas Eve

I felt like it was a scene out of "The Best Christmas Pagaent Ever" starring our children. We're not formal dining people. I don't know a family with six little ones that really is. But once a year we attempt it and once I year I get really ticked off when after spending all day preparing a beautiful and lavish meal for my family, I hear the belch, the toot...heck, in unison...it's a regular bodily function choir at my house. If me and my five brothers were to act that way as little ones our fannies would have been kicked to high-heaven for sure! And I know Curt's would have too. Are we creating little monkeys that just don't have manners? Some would think so. We should have dressed up for Christmas Eve--that would have probably made a difference in their manners.

At one point, Izzie was dancing around the table (not on the table, yeah, I know, surprise) while Monson had his feet up on his chair stuffing a roll into his pocket (they're REALLY yummy), but hey, we don't ration things around here, so what gives? And Bray was letting out a belch so loud (thanks to the sparkling grape cider) I think we woke up the mice in the garage while my sweet McKenzie was tooting, yes, tooting!! I think for me it's just spending so much time on a meal that gets partially picked at in like 2 minutes flat and goes appreciated only by Curt...which is why I miss cooking for my extended adult family on holidays like this. It's the shouts of "we want chicken dinos and pb& j!" that are the worst! Or, "Mommie, can we be done yet?!"

Everyone wanted to move on to the 'good part.' That is, the Christmas Program: The Nativity Puppets and Scripture account of the birth of our Savior along with the hymns we sing. Then of course Curt reading Twas The Night Before Christmas, and opening Christmas Eve jammies and our gift exchange with each other. It's all the anticipation, and eating was a mere formality at that point. They could have skipped it and gone with cereal and life would have been just dandy...for all of us! Maybe that will be our new tradition...breakfast on Christmas Eve. Doesn't take 3 hours to prepare!

We sang together out of tune and off pitch, but I love it that our kids love our Christmas Eve program and that they really get what it's all about. How grateful I am for the humble beginnings of our dear Savior, for the simplicity of the story and message. Oh, and on a commercialized note, for NASA's Santa tracker...my kids were all over that! He had already visited the cousins in Palm Bay, Florida and Boston, Mass by the time the kids went to bed. What fun technology brings!

On a side note, I was actually proud of my kids Sunday night when we had the opportunity to be Santa's Elves and deliver good cheer and bring a sense of happiness & hope to several women on bedrest at Mary Birch Hospital, where I was 8 months ago. They were really well-behaved and so excited to cheer up these women that were in a difficult place on Christmas. That's what Christmas is about and I'm grateful that we can do simple things to get everyone involved and serve as a family. I hope they each remember what that feels like and that we can do big projects more often than just in this season.