We had the quietest Christmas Eve morning I can remember. We woke up and opened stockings (it was the only down-time we knew we'd have over the weekend), baked the last items for the Christmas meals, then headed over to the Feely's for a delicious bowl of soup.
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| Our little guys made it into our stockings again :) Tradition! |
Each Christmas Eve, our church has a candlelight service. It's really beautiful, and probably my favorite thing we do all year. The praise team leads worship with traditional and new Christmas songs, our pastor shares a short word, a few light-hearted and heart-warming videos are shown, and then we all light candles and gather together outside to sing the first verse of Silent Night. It really is quite special, especially since both of our families (and often times many friends) come to join us.
After the service, Robby and I went to my parents' home for our Vander Kooi Christmas. This is a wonderful time, and nice and quiet compared to the big celebration with the whole extended family. Mom (as always) cooked an outstanding meal, and with all the Christmas goodies, none of us went lacking.
After dinner, it's present time! We (except for Mom and Dad) choose names, so we all had a nice gift picked out for someone. Roger and I ended up having each other's names! Camille got Robby for (I believe) the third year in a row, Chels had Camille, Robby had Carly, and Carly had Chelsea. Fun, fun! We all seemed to go over our price limit, but I suppose it's hard not to get caught up in wanting to buy the best gift ever for our sibling. (Although I'm pretty sure the gift I received was the BEST! A gorgeous red dress! Thanks, Roger!)
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| Chels and Roger |
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| Wearing the hats I gave Roger :) |
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| Softball stuff! |
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| Mom loved the bag Chels gave her -- it has a picture of all of us on it! |
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| Another sun for Dad, and perhaps my favorite one so far |
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| Just when we thought the gifts were over, Dad pulled out a new bike for the Beebs! |
After such an exciting time, we all were pretty tired and found places to snuggle up.
Roger is glad he made so many photos.
ReplyDeleteNice to see some images! Thanks!