Christmas Eve 2008

My family always does a big Christmas Eve celebration at my Aunt Pat's and Uncle Laren's house. Every year. So that has been ingrained into my memory as what Christmas Eve is supposed to be. Tons of food, talent, and reading of the bible. Well we just don't have that big of a family (or talents) and since we weren't home this year we did things a bit differently. 

We were extremely blessed to have Niels' mom Sharon with us this Christmas. This is the first time she has ever come to our house for Christmas (and not for lack of invitation I might add). The last time we celebrated Christmas with her and the Rask side of the family was in 2004, when Aricin was just 3 months old we went to Arizona. 

So for the Rask family tradition they do a lot of gifts on Christmas Eve. We just did one each. Nannee got this cute singing (and growing/melting) snowman along with the big snow globe for the boys. The boys of course, loved it! She made me a really nice beaded sun catcher for my van! Then we went to a Christmas Eve Candlelight service (as we did when we went to AZ to celebrate Christmas) at Calinda's church. It was a very nice service and of course the boys really liked having the real lit candles at the end. The two parts of the service that I really liked were the communion and the candles. They had everyone come down in families around small tables for communion. We did a prayer as a family which was very nice. Then the candles. I love the candles. This one was really neat in that they had a huge white candle at the front of the stage that was called the Christ candle. Then every candle in the place was lit from the source of this candle, just like we all can be spreading Christ's wonderful message. The light spread so quickly throughout the building, even to us up on the balcony! 

When we got home we put out reindeer food which this year consisted of carrots and water for them to drink. In years past it has been glittered oatmeal but the boys thought the reindeer would like a change of pace. Of course the reindeer loved the carrots because there were hardly any left, just a few jagged pieces. And they must have been thirsty from all that flying because the water was all gone! It must be quite the trip around the world in one night I would imagine! :) We remembered the reindeer this year but didn't put any cookies out for Santa. He must not of minded though, I am sure he gets tons of treats and those poor working reindeer don't probably get too much!

By then the boys were bushed and ready for Santa to come so we did a quick reading of the birth of Christ from Luke chapter 2 in the bible read to the background music of Silent Night, then off to bed they went with no complaints! 

Here, the boys getting the reindeer food and water ready, and Aricin enjoying his singing snowman.