Christmas Eve!!!

There's magic in the air tonight!  Everything about Christmas Eve has always felt so magical and wonderful to me!  We had a lovely dinner with lots of family and friends-- especially our new friends we met just last night.  They came late, but they came and we had a wonderful evening together!  We had mom, Robin, Allison and her boys, Beverly Seigel from the ward and Jerome, Mary, Jaxon and Christian Bonnafassi!  The food was yummy and everything just felt right in our little world!  Bill found a small Christmas tree on sale today and took it over to the Bonnafassi's hotel so they could have a tree!  After the Bonnafassi's finished eating, we watched the Nativity.  Even though they couldn't understand it because everything was in Aramaic-- those little boys were just glued to it!  They loved it and kept very quiet and reverent during it!  After we had a ball singing Christmas carols and harmonizing!  (The original plan was to go caroling, but we felt it was better to include the Bonnafassi's and by the time they got here and ate, it was too late to go.)  Bill went outside with Jerome to help him load all the presents into their car.  Some of our other friends heard about them and gave them a bunch of gift cards and some money, as well, so we gave that to them in a Christmas card. Their boys were having so much fun inside... they loved the nativity and loved singing and being together.  They especially loved Katelyn, as she let them play their guitar and sit on her lap!  You could tell all of them didn't want to leave.  We told the boys that if they went home and went to sleep, Santa could come, but if they didn't-- Santa wouldn't be able to come.   It was super late before they left... you could tell they just wanted to stay!  I'm so glad they came!  Both Mary and Jerome have had a lot of exposure to the church, so it gave us plenty of opportunity to talk to them about it.  They asked us pretty early on if we were "LDS"!  She grew up in Snowflake where she could see the temple lit up at night from her bedroom window, and she commented on how she always felt so much peace looking at it.  I got to explain why she felt that peace.  She also has an Aunt in Snowflake who is a member of the church, as well.  Jerome had friends growing up in Scottsdale who were members of the church.  We failed to invite them to church and both felt stupid for forgetting to do that, but we will invite them for sure later!  It was a sweet, spiritual Christmas Eve!

Later, we ALL got to open Christmas Eve presents-- I bought matching PJ's for ALL of us instead of just the kids this year!  It was super fun!  We got lots of pictures so that can be our Christmas card next year.  I also got the same PJ's for Brooke, so she will be matching as well with her companion and be able to be on the Christmas card as well.  We stayed up late watching a cute Christmas movie entitled "Klaus" about how Santa came to be.  It was really cute!  THEN, I stayed up until 3am wrapping stocking stuffers... I was tired by the time my head FINALLY hit the pillow!