Christmas Eve

It is so exciting to be able to celebrate the holidays with my little family. We've been gearing Leila up for Christmas for the past couple of weeks, ever since we put up the tree. We sing Christmas carols with her and to Emmie and read stories about Santa. She is pretty excited about Santa Claus now and his reindeer. Her favorite Christmas carol is Jingle Bells, she likes the part when she gets to yell "HEY!" Tonight we had our traditional Christmas Eve (of 2 years) adopted from my youth, of reading T'was the Night Before Christmas. Leila really enjoyed the story. She liked the pictures in the book the best and kept pointing out Santa throughout the story. Emmalene sat contently looking at the pictures and laughing at her sister's out busts. After story time we watched the "Santa" channel on tv that had a tracker and karaoke style carols to sing along to. She only wanted to hear one song, Jingle Bells, and we probably listened to it 20 times before bedtime. Now the little ones are all tucked in their beds, with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, while Justin and I are enjoying some hot apple pies (cider and tuaca, had to pass on the usual treat of eggnog and brandy due to the non-dairy diet I am on). I forgot to pick up some cookies for Santa today at the store, so I hope he doesn't mind cereal or soy ice cream. Or maybe he can have some leftover brisket that I made for dinner, it was really good. I'm off to finish some last minute present wrapping!