Christmas Eve, blessings and new traditions.

This is a special night for us in our family as it’s become the night we share our Christmas blessings with my in laws and my dad. I took over the job of hosting since Ailbe was born as it was much easier to have dinner at our home than to trek Bee around and now with baby it’s even easier to celebrate in our home! Anyway, I generally make a huge meal, and slave away for hours on end for everyone to enjoy and then eat in twenty minutes…Then there’s the clean up and I got to thinking I’ve watched so many women in my life slave away in the kitchen while their families enjoy the holiday and then again during clean up and I thought I need to decide which woman I want to be. Do I want to miss the holiday or do I want to alter it and enjoy it (at least while my kids are little) not missing a moment of the miracle that is watching a child at Christmas.

I’m sure many think what I came up with is cheating or not the “right” way to do the holiday season but as I lay here in my bed at 12:47 nursing my nine month old I know I made the right choice.

I decided to make a few dishes, and asked the other family members joining us to bring a few of their own to add. We don’t have a main course, but we do have a scrumptious variety of tasty dishes for us all to enjoy. I’m making bacon wrapped prawns, loaded potato skins, roasted fresh vegetables, mini ham and cheese sliders, stuffed mushrooms and monkey bread. It took me a whopping two hours to prep and I was ready to enjoy the day with my kids.

My mother in law brought shrimp salad and macaroni and cheese to add to the food. My sister Elaine brought chicken. It was all so delicious. Having a potluck style eve dinner really allowed for the family to sit where they wanted, eat as they chose and interact in various places in the home. I would highly suggest this style of eating for families with young children as well because the kids are able to play and roam as the adults are around at varying times and able to share in supervision.

In between prepping and eating I was apple to make a quick “errand” that is a rarity for mama. I was able to go get a manicure and pedicure. I ended up with Candy cane toes and a gel manicure and forty minutes later I realized I made the right choice to treat myself!

We took our annual Christmas Eve pics and then headed to the food tables.

After we all stuffed our faces we headed upstairs to follow Murphy tradition and have the kids look for Santa. Daddy told Bee to look for the red light and she really seemed to look this year.

Suddenly, we heard bells and a deep “ho ho ho.” Ailbe’s little face lit up as she turned to the door and pointed. We had such a lovely time having her find santa.

Now that Santa had come we were able to go downstairs and open our gifts that Santa brought.

It was apparently the year of the gift cards to our favorite places from Santa Murphy! The girls and I can’t wait to visit our favorite place Disneyland and also look forward to shopping on Amazon! A wonderful site for all your shopping needs 🙂

As the night wound down we huddled together. I nursed baby to bed, put Ailbe down, snuggled up in my pjs and set out cookies for Santa Donald to arrive in the morning.

What a blessed day it was. We had such a lovely evening with our loved ones and look forward to Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.

Santa was a little broke this year but he had plenty of love to go around 🙂

And mama got her fave!!!!

God Bless you this evening and always

❤
A