Christmas Eve in Memphis

One of the biggest perks of living near family (while away from most of the family) is that we have built in people to hang out with on holidays. And since both of our families were just getting over the flu, Joey and Katie were the only ones we could hang out with without feeling guilty about sharing germs. Plus, they are super awesome and we would have wanted to hang out with them even if they weren't family and germy like us. Win, win, win. We had a great Christmas Eve:

Bingo for prizes (and lots of dress-ups going on as usual.)

Jane and angels sing.

Aunt Katie playing the part of the good-natured burro, or good-naturedly playing the part of the burro,

and a tender manger scene.

Shepherds gather and Malan narrates Luke 2 with Joey's ipad.

 Mary ponders.

Christmas Eve is so special. I love to see my children beginning to understand what this is all about, and experiencing tender feelings while celebrating the birth of our Savior. Makes me want to try harder every year to keep the commercial side simple, and to magnify the important things.

And I loved sharing our Christmas Eve with the Hales. They bring so much fun and energy and warmth to everything that I feel like I'm lacking sometimes, and our girls soak that right up. It was a lovely evening. Hope yours was too.