Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve!! Everyone gathered at Mom and Dad's house for dinner. My Mom always has the most gorgeous Christmas table decorations.

We had a huge snow storm all through the night and most of the day, we got about a foot of fresh snow. Talk about getting to enjoy a white Christmas!

V is fascinated with Dorie, Dorie is still working on her feelings about V...

Sitting down to our wonderful Christmas Eve dinner

After dinner it was time for our traditional game of holiday bingo, a game that is fun for all ages!

We usually wrap bills of different amounts around life savors then wrap them up in wrapping paper, but we didn't get the life savors in time this year so mom and I made envelopes out of scrapbooking paper and stuffed each one with a bill.

Andrew has the best luck of anyone I know when it comes to winning games. I'm pretty sure he has walked away with one of the few 20s every single year.

Vienne loved sneaking treats to Dorie, this endeared Dorie to V a little bit more. V had a funny habit of opening her mouth every time she gave Dorie a treat.

After everyone had won at least once during Bingo, it was time to move into the living room for our annual Christmas Eve concert. V disappeared for a little while and emerged as the cutest little santa clause ever!

Thomas and James started the concert off by singing a couple of duets

Then Thomas played some of his holiday piano pieces

Santa V was enchanted with all the musical numbers

Evie played a few piano pieces as well

Sam originally said he didn't want to participate in the concert. Then he surprised us all by getting up and singing a solo! He sang White Christmas, including the spoken introduction. He did a wonderful job!

Next was Nora on the Violin. Nora is relatively new to the violin and she is doing so well! Grandpop is thrilled that one of his grandkids is learning "his" instrument, my dad is a very talented violin player.

Ben and Ricky played some piano duets

Andrew played his bass

And John played his clarinet!

We have a very talented group of grandkids!

After the concert, my mom read all the kids a Norwegian Christmas story. My Mom's side of the family is from Norway.

My mom then gave each family their own copy of the book, along with a little Norwegian elf hat that goes with the story.

Then we sang Christmas carols, the kids all took turns learning how to conduct with Ricky

We always finish the night with Great Granddad's scavenger hunt. This tradition comes from my Mother's Dad who passed away while I was a baby, he sounds like he was the most interesting and fun person. Grandpa Christensen treasured learning and loved reading so each child gets a present that has to do with books or reading. All the adults hid the presents all over the house and the kids had to find the one present with their name on it. Once everyone had found their present, we sat them all down on the couch and they took turns opening their gifts.

Big thank you hugs for Grammy

Everyone was thrilled with their books and couldn't wait to get started on them. There were little pairs of siblings, cousins, and grandkids all huddled around their books.

Then it was off to bed to have dreams of sugar plum fairies dance in our heads.