After all the busyness of Christmas preparation, we celebrated a relaxing and quiet Christmas Eve with David and Tammy visiting from Colorado. They flew in late on the night before Christmas Eve–while Mom and Dad Moody were still in town–and Brynn met Uncle David and Aunt Tammy for the first time.

Christmas Eve was beautiful and sunny, so we took a walk/bike ride along the Canyon Trails bike trail. Silas and Cooper were more interested in playing at the park than in riding their bikes.After the park, I made some holiday pretzel treats, and Silas and I delivered them to our neighbors. It was fun to spread some Christmas cheer.

Stephen led us in family worship which included reading from The Big Picture Story Bible, doing our Jesse Tree ornament/scripture, singing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and Jesus, Joy of the Highest Heaven,

and reading a poem called The Innkeeper about the slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem–a violent picture of why we need God With Us, Emmanuel, to come rescue this broken world. Then the kids opened their stuffed-full stockings from our friends, the Floreses, and some finger puppets from David & Tammy. Apparently holiday specs are just about the best stocking stuffers around.

I think I prefer the quiet reflective time of Christmas Eve to be the main devotional time at Christmas. We could savor it more since we didn’t have the mountain of presents calling us to open them immediately.

Christmas Eve night we four adults played Settlers of Catan–a rare treat for Stephen and me to play a board game.

Christmas morning was magical–filled with family, friends, presents, surprises, love, babies, and little boys. Connie and David Goodman arrived at 8am, and we greeted them in our jammies. Stephen led is in opening our final ornament box for the Jesse Tree–the Star of Bethlehem. We sang carols and read Romans 8 and Luke 2. As I’ve mentioned on our “About” page of this blog, Romans 8:32 is one of our favorite verses, and it points to the reason we celebrate Christmas. God gave up His only Son for us, so that Jesus Christ could come meet our greatest need–a way to get to God. If God could give us His greatest gift, of course He will give us everything else we need.

The house looked like we were buried in wrapping paper and presents by the time we were finished opening all the gifts.David & Tammy are expecting their first child, due July 16th. We were thrilled to give them one of their first presents for the baby. Silas and Cooper both received scooters and a wooden train set to expand their current set. Look at that thrill of excitement on Cooper’s face when he opened his present from “The Aunts” (my sisters). Connie and David helped Brynn open her stocking and presents. Little Brynn celebrated her first Christmas like a champ, but it was exhausting! A lot of us went in together to buy Stephen his first guitar. He’s been wanting to learn to play for family worship.

We topped off the morning with a Christmas brunch, and then spent the rest of the day enjoying our new gifts, relaxing, talking with family and watching movies. Stephen put together the entire USS Missouri for Silas. Cooper’s mission in life was to open every single present package and to eat all of his Christmas candy. The kids were in turbo mode!

I’m so thankful for a day of celebration with the ones I love.