The night before Christmas...

Our Christmas Eve tradition usually involves us attending the Children's Christmas mass at church and then coming home and opening family gifts by the tree before retiring for the evening awaiting Santa's visit.

This year Ryan, Emma and Avery were able to participate in the nativity play during mass. Ryan, as pictured above, was a wise man...

Emma was a gingerbread cookie (the play begins talking about the things we get caught up doing in preparation of Christmas and then of course, talks about the birth of Christ)...

And Avery was a sheep...

After mass, we went over to the church social hall where the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and got to enjoy some punch and cake. This train set was a big hit among all of the little boys there.

After we got home, I have everyone participate in our family Christmas picture before everybody changes out of their church clothes. This is always challenging since it has to be taken through setting up the tripod and setting the timer. Obviously, Eden wasn't in the mood to play along!

And then of course I tried to get one of the kids together...Again, Eden wasn't having it!

The kids enjoyed opening up their family gifts.

We put out our cookies for Santa and Ryan wrote a note to go along with the snack and then it was time to turn in and rest up for Christmas morning!