Christmas Eve

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve at home this year.
We both had to work half days, but then we took off early and started our family time with a trip to Cherry Creek to Santa.


Savannah is a total daddy's girl.  

and we all know Chance's story....


Chance was so excited to see Santa.  He knows the Santa story and understands Christmas, but when the time came to actually go up to Santa and sit on his lap...
Chance totally freaked and refused to go without me. Savannah on the other hand, had no issues and was fine the minute she was placed on Santa's knee.
Long story short, we got a family Santa photo :)

After Santa and a lap around the mall, we came back to the house to meet up with Aaron and Nick who were both joining us for a Christmas Eve church service.

Cook brought us a Poinsettia, some delicious shrimp, and the most amazing cheese assortment to snack on while we waited for our time to go to church.
We went to the candlelight service at Platt Park Church in our neighborhood and really enjoyed it.  

After church it was time to prepare our feast.  Complete with Clark Griswold moose mugs and whiskey.  

I put Savannah to sleep and the boys made the entire dinner.
They did an amazing job! Prime rib, mashed potatoes, and mushrooms!

I think I should have them drink whiskey and cook feasts more often.

Following with Max's family tradition as a child, we let Chance open up one gift.
He was so excited it was contagious.  

We ended our night be setting out milk and cookies for Santa and saying our prayers.  

I caught Santa's helpers eating the cookies after the kids were asleep.  We set up all of the presents that had generously been shipped to us by both sets of grandparents.
We were so excited to see the kids on Christmas morning that we had a hard time sleeping ourselves.