Christmas Eve 2010

Christmas Eve is definitely my favorite part of the holiday season. Translation: this post is long and has a plethora of pictures.

I kept with my culture tradition and this year we did Mexico. We asked our mexican neighbor lots of questions, hit the mexican store in the neighborhood, and prepared ourselves for fun. It began with dinner. We had tortilla soup (I just couldn't stomach the thought of tripe soup) with tamales and tried out some sangria and guarana to drink. It was yummy!
Then, because the girls just couldn't wait anymore, we opened presents with my parents. We gave our parents stockings again and the girls adored helping us pick out everything with which to fill them. They gave us a lovely end table and we gave them a new digital photo frame all preloaded with photos from their history. Oh, and Laura got her favorite present of the whole year: a pillow pet!
Next, we did a pinata! I didn't know where to hang it, so Jason held it for me. It was great fun. The girls took turns whacking at it and Eliza thought they were just hilarious! Then she had to get in on the act herself. It ended up being the world's most well-built pinata, because it finally took me impaling the thing to get it to crack open. Then the girls loved filling bags with the treats that fell from the pinata.
By then our bellies had made enough room for dessert and I thought it was time to transfer to more spiritual things. So, we sang "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus over our tres leches cake. As a person who doesn't generally love cake, I thought this cake was great. I may have to change my birthday request back to cake just to eat this one again!

We got the girls into their new jammies (Minnie Mouse and Ariel) and started to settle them down. Then we acted out the nativity. It was Sara's turn to be Mary and she relished it. She was perfectly sweet, quiet and spiritual. I was impressed! Laura was great and happy to be an angel (typecasting, I know)!

Despite seriously sore throats and hoarse voices, we all croaked out a few Christmas Carols. Laura accompanied us on three of them. Then we listened to her angel voice sing "Silent Night" to end the evening.

We put poor, exhuasted Eliza to bed and enjoyed a cup of Mexican hot chocolate (yum-o) before the girls set out Santa's plate. They went to bed beautifully (it was more than 2.5 hrs past their bedtime) and we didn't start the next morning until Laura awakened us first at 7:45 am.

What a great night! I think it is these memories that I will cherish most as my girls grow up! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family and feel it dearly at these special times.