Christmas Eve 2007

(Grace and Hattie making sugar cookies for pre-school and the neighborhood.
Don't worry - we were all healthy that day and I made sure lots of handwashing went on!)

Christmas Eve was a busy day for us. We started the day by tromping around our neighborhood with goodies and gifts. Apparently, the "neighbor gift" is not a phenomenon in our area. I remember wherever we lived in Salt Lake, it seemed like you always had an endless stack of goodies brought over by the neighbors and/or people in the ward. So much you were sick of eating it all. Even if you forgot a neighbor, you always had plenty of extra to re-gift something real quick. Nope, not here. We have been giving goodies for 3 years to our immediate neighbors (now 6 houses) and no one reciprocates except our sweet friends, Roger and Jeanne and their daughter Elisabeth and her boyfriend Jay. We're not offended. We do like to spread a little Christmas cheer to the people whom we see across the fence or through the yard.

Roger, Jeanne, Elisabeth, and Jay always have something special for our kids tucked under their trees. Grace especially likes visiting their houses and Grace has now helped Jeanne and Roger decorate their Christmas tree for the past 2 years.

After visiting the last neighbor where we found out about noradsanta.org, we came home and started tracking Santa! This was a crazy thing. Grace sat in front of the computer for hours checking off all the countries as he raced through the time zones to deliver gifts. When it was time to leave for Christmas Eve dinner, Santa was in Africa and we had tracked him through Russia, Europe, and the Middle East.

As we drove on the winding roads to the Bahe's house, we marveled over the post-card setting we live in. The snow had a top layer of freezing rain, and in the full moon and Christmas lights it was like sparkling glass. The perfectly decorated country colonial homes were little paintings out of a Victorian Christmas calendar.

We spent the evening with our friends, the Bahe Family and the missionaries in our ward. The Bahe's invited us over to their house for the second year in a row. They have great traditions from soup for dinner to reading the Texas version of The Night Before Christmas (complete with Texan accents), re-enacting the Nativity (Grace was the donkey - hence the gray tail), singing carols (THEY sing well - professional musicians), and playing Christmas songs with hand-made chimes. Grace loves this party. She and Aydan Bahe get along famously. The Bahes also have some great little animals - 2 little dogs, a cat, and a kitten. They kept Hattie busy for sure.
When we got home from dinner, it was pretty late. We were nervous to see where Santa was on the tracker. He was VERY close. Actually, Grace saw him fly through the sky with Rudolf as we drove home. He was working near our time zone in South America. Boy, Santa expected us to be in bed at a good hour! I guess that's how you get on the nice list. Our household has gone back and forth from the naughty to the nice list this past month and we hoped to end up on the nice one! We decided we better hurry ourselves to bed and I think we just made it in the nick of time.