Christmas Eve

We had such a wonderful Christmas Eve! Growing up for me, Christmas Eve was almost more of a party than Christmas Day because the anticipation was still there. (Of course nothing beats Christmas morning) We had the missionaries over for dinner - hey kill two birds with one stone. I was making a big meal anyway, so it was easy to invite the missionaries. We had a yummy turkey dinner, then we had a visit from Alonzo Snodgrass. Who?? You might ask... Alonzo is an old man that my dad met about 35 years ago as he was traveling from Utah to California. His car broke down and he walked to the closest farm house he could see, which happened to be the Snodgrass home. He stayed over night and Alonzo helped fix my dad's car in the morning. (At least that's the legend :)) Every Christmas Eve since then - or sometimes at the Roylance Christmas parties - Alonzo has secretly delivered presents to our family. They are always hidden and we have to go look for them. (Sometimes one of his friends will call and give us a hint of where the presents are.) Alonzo was very secretive and would watch in our windows throughout the year, if he was ever going through town, so the presents aren't addressed to our actual name, it's a hint about something that we've done, or something about us, and we have to figure out who the presents belong to. He also sends a funny letter telling about his "happenings" throughout the year. Alonzo was always my favorite Christmas Eve tradition growing up. Since we didn't go up to Utah this Christmas Alonzo somehow knew we'd be here and he somehow knew the missionaries would be with us so after dinner we went looking for our presents and found them in the closet in the playroom/ baby's room. We read the letter and figured out who the presents went to.
Pregnant Paula = Me
Kitty Cat Loving Clara = Rebecca
Star Wars Steve or 8 Minute Matt = Hayden (He always wants 8 more minutes for everything - to stay awake, to play a game, to watch a movie, etc.)
Certification Studying Sam = Jerry ( He has a HUGE certification test coming up next month for work and he's studying big time for it.)
And the missionaries were, Far From Home Freddy, and Preaching Paul
It was a great night and Hayden and Rebecca were so excited that it was Christmas Eve, just thinking about Santa coming that night made it hard for Hayden to sleep. One tradition that Jerry had growing up was that Christmas Eve was the only night they got to have a tv in their room. They'd get to buy treats and watch tv that night in their room to go to bed. We have continued that tradition as well. Hayden and Rebecca watched TV all night. Finally they fell asleep at around 11:00, so I turned off the tv, but at around 3:30 I woke up and saw the tv on again. It was such a novelty they loved it. It's a good thing it is only 1 day a year or my kids would never go to sleep. We were surprised that they weren't awake until 8:00 the next morning.

They were too excited to sit and listen to the story of Christ's birth from the scriptures, so they danced while listening, in their new pajamas.

Cookies and milk for Santa. Once again, my kid's don't like to wear clothes.

Christmas Eve dinner with the missionaries.

Our cute little family at Christmas Eve dinner.

Hayden finally found the Alonzo gifts.

The missionaries got some donuts and McDonald's gift cards.