Christmas Eve at Nini and Papa's

For a couple of years now we have been having dinner and exchanging presents on Christmas Eve at my parents' house.

This has really worked out so well.  This year my uncle was in town so he joined us, which was a nice treat.  The boys have taken to him and he wants to be the cool uncle!!

We don't normally have the traditional Christmas meal - so it was steaks and potatoes for us.  Since my uncle is a chef he grilled the steaks for us.   Then it was time to open presents which the boys were so excited about.  It's a challenge to make sure they understand the true meaning of Christmas and I think Brody gets it because I overhear him telling Trevor that "Christmas is not about the presents, but it's about Jesus' birthday".  I pray that he continues to feel this way.

I'm pretty sure mom had this perfect scenario in her mind about reading the Christmas story that night - well throw that out the window because it just didn't go that way.  She used an activity book to read the story and all the boys (mostly Trevor) was worried about was putting the stickers in the book.  Oh well maybe it will get better.

Present time - As we went 1 person at a time, I'm sure my impatient children were dying inside, but oh well this is how we roll.  

A new bow and arrow

Trevor received a new scooter

Mom was so creative - this is how she did the name tags on our packages.

Just what we needed 8 new Star War figures - this isn't Jason's present but Trevor's :)

Jason received a new air compressor and of course Trevor had to help.  Jason's gift consisted of several unblown balloons with a piece of a picture of the compressor - it was a very clever way to wrap the gift.

      

Trevor helping Uncle Chris unwrap his presents.  Trevor just got tired of waiting on everyone to unwrap their presents so he decided to help everyone out.

 

Dad decided to wrap up 3 gifts that he had bought for himself - it was the funniest thing when Jason went to pass out the presents and it only said "Doc" so we all figured what he had done.

We all went in and purchased mom a new laptop.  She was in desperate need of one - now if she will just stop clicking on stuff so much.

It was a great night at mom and dad's - very relaxing and thankfully we didn't feel too rushed like we would have if we did this on Christmas Day.