Christmas Eve 2021

My family gathered at our house late yesterday afternoon for dinner, gifts, and games.  Our house was full, but a good time was had by all.   Our daughter-in-law, Sharon, extended an invitation to come to their house today, but Jerry and I opted to stay home and relax after such a full day yesterday.  We spent the afternoon watching Home Alone #1 and It's a Wonderful Life.  Hope you had a Merry Christmas.

I managed to get a few pics to share.  We set up two eating tables in the family room, plus the extension table in the dining area to accommodate 17.

Great-granddaughters, Evie and Jules [Juliette], have a golden retriever so I bought special plates for them to eat on which they took home afterwards.

The girls [along with their parents, John and Tiffany] were the first to arrive so I took their picture in front of the Christmas Tree.

I had all the supplies to make gingerbread houses with them, but the evening went by so quickly we didn't get a chance.  Below is our daughter, Lori, her husband, Dave, along with John, Tiffany and the girls.

Steve, Sharon, Brianna and Brooke

Jeremy, Samantha, Izzy, Landon and Ellie

After dinner granddaughter, Ellie, read the Christmas story from Luke Chapter 2.

Then it was time to open gifts. We always open gifts one at a time starting from youngest to oldest so we can see what everyone got.

Jules began the gift opening, followed by Evie.  

Izzy liked her music/jewelry box and name necklace.

And Brooke loved her Shutterfly photo album from the first five years of her life.

After gifts, we played three rounds of Christmas Charades, then it was time to have our Birthday Cake for Jesus.  I put candles on both cakes [Cassata and Chocolate Mound] and we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, then Jules and Evie each had a cake with candles to blow out.

Cake and cookies [Lori brought two trays of homemade cookies] were followed by a card game [Uno] and a TikTok video of a family dance to "Sleigh Ride."  Notice not all of us were energized, agile or coordinated enough to participate!  ;-)

[Turn your sound on]

Shortly afterwards everyone departed for their homes making Christmas Eve 2021 a memory of another fun family gathering.

Santa was very good to me, and I'll share my gifts in a separate post, but the greatest gift is Jesus who came to earth to be the sacrifice and atonement for my sins, and the gift of family.