Christmas Eve

Our Christmas celebration started this year as it traditionally does by celebrating on Christmas Eve with Shelley's family in Oklahoma.

This was the first Christmas without either of her grandparents so I was curious how it would be.

We arrived around 4:30 to find that our boys who had been there since Friday weren't there. They had gone with one of Shelley's cousins to find their "best friends." These are the daughters of another one of Shelley's cousins. These two girls are just awesome little girls who my boys really love.

Shelley's family is quite large and I was intimidated by them for quite sometime. They did nothing to cause this but their large number really made it hard for me sometimes. But, I can tell you they are the best people you will ever meet and that isn't more evident as to how they treat my boys.

We can be there for hours and never see our boys and not be worried in the least. There is always someone playing with them, taking care of them or just watching them and making sure they aren't doing something they shouldn't. The thing that surprised me the most is these duties usually don't fall on the adults but on the older kids. There are boys and girls all in their teens who are perfectly happy to play for hours with my two under 5 boys. They start teaching them early to care for other people.

Well, back to Christmas Eve.

The crowd started arriving around 5:30 and by 6:30 almost everyone was there. A count was done and there were over 50 people there which was a pretty good turnout.

As usual there was plenty of food and the traditional fried pies. My favorite is the apple but Shelley tells me that only the "outlaws" like the apple.

While it wasn't the same without Grandmother everyone was having a good time. But her absence became apparent when it was time to open presents. Without her leadership there was no one willing to declare it was time to open presents. So, there was a period of time when the kids were asking to open presents and all of the adults just stared at one another wondering who had the authority to give the okay. I don't know who did but it was finally declared ok to open presents and Seth and Chase were the first in line.

We had a great time and finally made our exit around 8:30 and headed back for our two hour drive to tuck our little ones in.