Great Performances on Christmas Eve

Our favorite part of Christmas is Christmas Eve.  We always meet at my parents' house for soup and sandwiches, and tamales - always tamales (we are so lucky to live in a place where amazing tamales are available!).  Then after we are fed and happy, we don our Santa hats and go caroling.

This year we lucked out.  As soon as we hit the road we came across some lit-up golf carts.  It was so fun.  They were weaving around down the street.  And guess who, of all people, was riding on one of the golf carts?

It was Santa Claus himself.  What are the chances of running into him on Christmas Eve? Imagine that!  Luke and Caleb were so excited!

Give whole new meaning to the term "electric cars", huh?

A few cheery carolers.  My mom makes sure all the kids are armed with instruments.  Luke has a triangle.  We make quite a racket going down the street.  We don't usually catch people unawares.  They always hear our gang coming.

Alex looks like an elf, compete with genuine silver sleigh bells my parents found once at a garage sale.  They have a beautiful sound.

I don't know if we had a wonderful sound, but we had fun bringing good tidings to you and your kin.

We always sing the same three songs.  Jingle Bells, Silent Night, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  The kids are allowed to bang and clang to their hearts content on the first and last songs, but they have to keep their instruments silent during Silent Night.

We work our way to my house where my yummy white hot chocolate and coconut wreath cake were waiting to warm us up. 

  The kids dig into our nativity costume bag and get all read for the big performance.  In this year's production, the kids had their own, rather nontraditional, version of the wondrous story.  Their version, was slightly less wondrous.

Too old to be Baby Jesus any more, Luke makes a perfect Angel.

At some point during the show, the actors became more interested in the Christmas tree than in the performance.  What ever happened to "the show must go on?"

This year we even had a special walk-on (well, limp-on) part by our very own Tiny Tim (I know, wrong Christmas story, but you have to work with what you got.  I said it was nontraditional). 

 God bless us, everyone!