Christmas Tradition~

It is 8:07 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and my heart is just at ease.  I absolutely adore the season of Christmas with the lights, the decorations, beautiful music, and most importantly the celebration of the birth of our Savior!

While I have memories of Christmas from my own childhood, these memories are often filled with fighting over who had to go milk the cows on Christmas morning, a house filled with smoke due to the wood-burning stove, or the disappointment that we couldn't travel anywhere for the holiday season yet again.  Santa was always good to us, but there just wasn't that magical feeling that I so think Christmas should bring.

I love creating tradition for my own kids, so they have no doubt in their mind this is how you celebrate Christmas!  We keep it simple and enjoy the blessings we have in each other.

Rowan and I made reindeer food for Santa's reindeer to snack on when they finally reach our house!

The recipe is:
1 cup of dry oats
1/2 cup of sugar
3 Tablespoons of brown sugar
Sprinkles for color

Sprinkle it all across your lawn on Christmas Eve for Santa's reindeer!

He did all of the measuring!

Looks so yummy, I just might eat it!

We have decided fondue is our Christmas Eve dinner of choice. It is delicious and certainly a special treat in our house. Rowan loves to dip things, and he actually requests this for special meals. We did the broth and cheese courses before we left for church! Rowan requested the shrimp cocktail as well, and he ate 8 shrimp before he was full!
 

Yummo!

Happy Heart!

Then it was off to get dressed up for church!  Christmas Eve service is by far my favorite service of the entire year.  I look forward to it, and I am always so uplifted by the joyous tone and the beautiful music.  It makes my heart happy to say the least! 

Each year I take a picture of the kids in front of the tree. Then I have an 8x10 printed to hang on my wall. It's my little bit of Christmas all year round. Isla was a challenge this year, but we got 2 good ones!

They really do love each other~

This one just melts my heart~

We sprinkled out our reindeer food for Santa's friends.

Then it was off to church.  The service was perfect and ended in candlelight.  My favorite~

Then we were home for our chocolate fondue. The kids loved it!

This kid would have preferred a spoon for the chocolate;-)  She must be my daughter!

Then it was off to bed for sleeps so Santa could make his rounds! Speaking of which, Santa had better make his rounds here soon!

Merry Christmas!!