Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christms Eve!

On Christmas Eve, we eat pozole, which is a traditional Mexican eaten on holidays.We put on the tablecloth and use our fine china. Pozole is made of chicken broth, with chicken and hominy in it. For toppings you add lettuce, radishes, onion, oregano, chili and fresh lime juice. Yummy!After dinner, we had a small "Christmas Recital". Libby accompanied on the piano to the family singing Angels We Have Heard on High, and Jesse, Mary and I sang the First Noel. Jesse played What Child is This, arranged by Jim Brickman, and I played I Wonder as I Wander.

We then went to the Living Room and talked about the Savior's life, as we went around the room and each person talked about their favorite part of Christ's life. This is a really special thing to do with the beautiful lights of the Christmas tree lighting the room.

Then it was on to the Family Room, where we enacted the Nativity, complete with authentic clothing from our Semester Abroad in Israel 19 years ago. We even have our Joseph and Mary! (The Superman t-shirt underneath is not authentic - ha ha).
Josh was the innkeeper.
Peter was the shepherd,and Jesse was the angel.Libby was the wiseman following the star (that was swinging around on the fan, thanks to Josh).
Since we're in between the baby stage and the grandkid stage, we had to use a doll for the baby Jesus. Of course, I was delighted to have the real thing for Libby the Wiseman to give to baby Jesus - real Frankincense, real Myrhh and gold. (Have I mentioned that I love essential oils?)
And then comes the kids' favorite part - the opening of the first present from Santa, which is, surprise, surprise - a pair of pajamas bottoms.

Oh, no, the pajamas are not the kid's favorite part of the night. Their very favorite part of the night comes after family prayers, and then the kids are up to the Entertainment Room and making a "Fort". The Fort consists of every blanket, sheet and pillow in the house, except for Mom & Dad's bed. This year they even brought in matresses off their beds! They pile these all together and then all the kids sleep on it for the next week or so. They love this tradition! And they really went all out this year and organized every step of it.

Next post: Christmas Day!

7 comments:

Curtis said...

May I be the first to comment that it's good to have you back in the blogosphere. We missed hearing about your famalies latest adventures.

WhettenWild said...

Love that picture of all the kids!

Glad you remembered the limes for the pozole =)

Elaine Brown Billings said...

I just love your posts. Your family is so very cute and you do such fun things! Luv you!

annette said...

I have missed your posts. I love your Christmas traditions. Very much putting Christ back into Christmas. I miss the pozole on Christmas eve, The Neilsens would not go for that. Love your sweet family. My kids used to all sleep together on Christmas eve too.

wenderful said...

So fun, Lorena! We do very similar things on Christmas Eve save for the Pozole. We did a Christmas Eve brunch this year so that we could go out and look at the Christmas lights with Ralf's parents.

Curtis said...

Oh, and by the way, congratulations to Jessie! The braces are GONE!

Curtis said...

21 Jan 2010. Can we see pictures of Joseph's birthday?