Christmas Eve 2012

Monday, we got up and got our gifts ready to take for Christmas eve, and the food that we needed to take for Christmas Eve and then headed to Elizabeth's for the Clay Family Christmas Eve tradition. We had turkey, and ham, and potatoes of several varieties, fruit salads, pies, stuffing, rolls, etc., etc., etc. it was a feast and it was delicious. Then we had family pictures taken because it has been so long since we have all been together (see earlier post) and the first time that both Barbara's Children and Dean's Children were all together at one time.

 

Ruth, Sarah, and John

Sammy, Jill and Edward

Dad and Barbara

John, Aileen and Allison



Anne Marie and Me



Sarah had to put her boots on the second they crossed the Texas
State Line!!

Andy, Kim, Valeree, and Caleb



My Sisters!! (Kim, Elizabeth, Ruth, and Lois)



Now its  complete because we added Jill our sister-in-law

Caleb, JP, and John

Anne Marie and Andy



I gave Tytan his Christmas Sock...I think he liked it!!



Logan has always loved Aileen and treated her as such even when he
is a teenager who could be "too cool" but he's not he just loves her
and I love him!!

Sarah and Tytan

Elizabeth and George

David, Barbara, Chris, and Ashley

Taylor, Lauren, Tootie, and Ashley

We also had the traditional FHE reading the Christmas story from the scriptures, with singing the carols as we go. Dad had also requested that some of us perform, so Ruth played her cello, Sarah played the piano, Samantha played her violin, Lauren sang and played her clarinet, Allison and I sang a duet. After which it was time for the opening of presents.

We open gifts from parents and each other on Christmas Eve, and then Santa's gifts are Christmas morning.  The funniest gift of the night was a glass fingernail file that Dad thought was so amazing that we all needed one…..we still laugh about that gift…it’s a classic story that will be told for years!

 

We all went in on getting Barbara and Dad a really nice fancy camera because Barbara loves taking pictures more than I do....and that's really saying something so we loved watching her cry over that and we are all going to get a blanket with our families picture on it like Elizabeth's and we all had one family that we gave a gift to...We went in order oldest to youngest and then youngest had to give to oldest!  It worked out really nice and my family loves what we got from Chris....I broke my last crock pot and everyone was mourning my not being able to slow cook a roast for Sunday dinners....but never fear....Chris got us a new one and a Gift Card to Hobby Lobby my favorite place!  It was perfect.

 

Elizabeth made everyone jewelry!!

She didn't get my bracelet done in time so I got this instead!!
And as a teacher I think its great...I love it and I'm sure I will be using it for
a lesson soon!

My kids all got their traditional Christmas PJ's

 

Kim gave us all candles and we all just got so many nice surprises!!

 

And I always make the family calendars that everyone loves.  A tradition that I have kept going since Mom passed away as that was always her gift to all of us every year!!  It was a great night!!