Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve began with fairly warm and pleasant outdoor temperatures. I know this morning-related news, because our church offered several Christmas Eve candlelight services at non-typical candlelight times. Brennen worked at 2 and Buck was scheduled to work all day, so we picked the service at least three of us could attend--and it turned out to be the one my brother's family attended, too. They even got "ushered" to our row :) I helped Mr. M with some puzzles in the kid packet and got to see sweet H in the glow of the candles--she was a fan of the flickering light, so beautiful!

I'm glad I at least loaded some photos onto this post last week, because already the details are growing distant in my brain-noggin. I recall spending much of Christmas Eve working on food prep for the following day (I learned my lesson from Thanksgiving, rolls need time to rise :) I mixed up my CO MIL's yeast roll recipe and it really seemed to take off! I also made a CA coworker's Christmas Chex, my cousin's Almond Roca, and Chocolate Pixie cookie dough that I remember my mom often made (I'm not 100% sure if it is the recipe she used or not). Those cookies got baked the next day, along with my Grandma' B's rice casserole--yum! It was a nice opportunity to break out some family recipes, for sure :) 

Buck texted in the early afternoon that business was very slow, and he thought he'd be able to come home from work early by a few hours! I wondered if that would mean he could attend a Christmas Eve service after all, but it ended up being an indoor type of afternoon as the temps dropped toward a hoped-for Christmas snowfall.

I also found out that Chase and Gabby planned to spend the night Christmas Eve, so I upped my plan for Mexican food and Buck brought home some extras like queso, tamales, and guac (along with several Christmas dinner items, like the roast he planned to smoke and a black forest cake dessert which was amazing). It was a pleasant, tasty meal! 

The kids retreated down the hall to play video games while Buck and I finished up my afore-blog-mentioned cabin gift from Gabby. "Advent" has kind of become synonymous with "countdown to Christmas," so this didn't have anything to do with preparing for the Nativity. It turned out to be a fun daily puzzle that coincided with my birthday month. We often let a few days stack up between puzzle solves, but we managed to pick up where we left off pretty easily :) Caelan took it home with her after Christmas, so she can finish the puzzles she helped me start. Super, super clever idea for an at home challenge!

Ooh, that dough! During the evening, I think Buck and I added some movies to the Christmas count, but I cannot even remember, and can't fact check with my currently-sleeping co-rememberer. I guess I should mention that this day started his week plus of vacation; he kept a portion of his approved time off from the Africa trip we're supposed to be on right now. It seemed like the time was going slowly, but suddenly it's all used up and he heads back to work tomorrow! Okay, but not blog tomorrow, lol, that's Christmas and we're just getting started! Oh, and I remember now that Buck set up a temporary Netflix thingy so we could watch Klaus, which is his favorite holiday treat movie that is available nowhere else in any form (well, unless you buy a copy in Japanese from overseas, but that's not really very helpful). I think I made it to 11 or 12 Christmas movies this year; I lost count.

It was impressive how the kids' gifts to each other, including the boxful the newlyweds brought over and stowed beneath the tree, really filled the place up! All the stocking stuffing took place earlier than usual for "Santa's Elf" (that's me ;) I had a written list of what went in each stocking, and--for the first time ever--didn't sample any of the stocking stuffer treats as they were loaded into the respective holding locations. Lol! Stocking stuffers are a lot of fun, because they can be anything and everything--and that's usually what they turn out to be :)

My dough fluffeth over!!