Leading up to Christmas we had some fun family time going to Carols and Candlelight at our church. Miller asked to sit with Ella Kate and Miss Faith so we let him break away for the first time in church. We were just two rows back and he did great! It was a beautiful service and I'm so glad we were able to go for the first time!
We also enjoyed lots of time at home snuggling, watching movies, playing, and baking. It was really nice to be home for the few days before Christmas!
On Christmas Eve morning, Miller came running downstairs excitingly asking if Christmas was in just one more day. When I answered yes, he said, "So we're going to see Santa today?!?!" You see, we normally bump into Santa all sorts of places, but it turns out this year the only place we saw him was at the Night Before Christmas downtown. When told us he didn't want to wait in line to see him and we didn't think a thing about it. Suddenly on Christmas Eve he was in a panic that Santa wouldn't know what he wanted! We live in a small town with no mall Santa so, it was Express Mail to the rescue ;)
That night we went to church with Bryant's family and then to dinner at Betty Jo's house.
Betty Jo had set up a dryer box/fort for the boys complete with blocks and crayons. What a fun
great-grandmother!
When we got home we read our second to last Jesse Tree devotional and opened our ornament. About halfway through, I realized bribery with chocolate was going to be necessary to keep two boys still for a devotional. Once we started that "tradition" they did great! I was so excited that Miller remembered so many of the stories that the ornaments represented. Even Jacob did a great job remembering parts of the stories! I hope this tradition will help hide God's word in the boys' hearts and help them to see the big picture of God's redemption plan for us.
Lastly, we put out cookies and milk for Santa. This was the first year Miller has asked to put out cookies and he insisted in putting Smarties in them when we baked them. Yum! ;)
After that it was off to bed! It was the easiest bedtime ever since Miller was basically pushing us out of his room so he could go to sleep and Santa could come. Maybe he should come more often, ha!
