The kids worked really hard on Christmas Eve to have everything ready for Santa when he came. We started out the day getting in the Christmas Spirit with the Sesame Street Countdown to Christmas episode. All the kids enjoyed it, but Hayes was mesmerized!
Later we moved on to the cookie baking! They decided Santa would definitely like chocolate chip cookies. They also decided they should try a few out to make sure they tasted just right! ;) They earned it though as hard as they concentrated on them!
Once Daddy got home from work, we got busy decorating! They did a wonderful job and were very creative with their designs. Hayes did more tasting than decorating, but he enjoyed being right in the middle of all the action! Especially when slipped little tastes of icing here and there.
They were pretty proud of their finished products and had trouble deciding which would be the best to leave for Santa!
We had a traditional Christmas dinner… spaghetti! Haha. We opted to have something we knew the kids would be excited to eat versus spending out Christmas Eve forcing them to take bites. Pick your battles- right? We also didn’t pick one about Hayes deciding he needed to feed himself. Messy, messy, messy!
We did carry on one of Murray’s family’s Christmas traditions to have glass bottle cokes for dinner. The kids got the biggest kick out of toasting!
After supper, we headed outside to leave reindeer food and carrots. Cole and Jordan had insisted that we buy “big carrots” and 9 of them. One for all 8 reindeer plus Rudolph of course!
We also set up our cookies and milk. Cole needed to leave white milk, and Jordan needed to leave chocolate milk. Cole also worked very hard writing out the kids’ letter to Santa. He had a sentence from each of them. So proud of my smart boy and how well he knows how to write his letters.
(Dear Santa, I want to wish you a merry christmas. Jordan hopes you bring her a puppy surprise. Hayes says thank you. Love- Cole, Jordan, Hayes-y)
I don’t know that our kids have ever gone to bed so well. Even though they were SO pumped for Christmas morning, they took our warning about Santa not stopping at houses with kids who were still awake very seriously! Cole even told me “Mom, tonight you and Dad HAVE to go to bed early too so Santa will come!” It worked because Santa left some pretty fun presents for them to find in the morning!
