Christmas Eve morning we headed off to ND. It had snowed the day before so the roads weren't always the greatest. We drove past a horrible accident near Alex, where we found out a few days later that a dad and son had past away in that accident. It wasn't a pretty sight. With that, Jeremy made sure we took things easy the rest of the way to ND. It took us pretty much the entire day to travel (8 hours I think), which meant that we wouldn't be going to the church service with my family. Instead we met everyone afterwards at my parent's house. Jeremy and I were getting our rice pudding started (it takes an hour to make but is soo worth the wait). It is tradition to eat hot rice pudding with butter, milk and cinnamon sugar on Christmas Eve. And somewhere in that humongous bowl of rice is a blanched almond. Whoever finds the almond has to hide it until the rest of us are plump full! They then get a special present. This year's winner was my niece Bekah. She couldn't keep it a secret--her face was all red and she had a look of shock! She was pretty cute.
After eating the rice pudding, as if that wasn't enough to fill us up, some of us ate Danish Dumpling Soup (another tradition). Once we had everything cleaned up we headed to the basement to sing some carols (which is always entertaining if you are a part of my family). Try imagining 22 people holding hands, walking around in a circle, and singing Christmas carols. The little kids are staring at the adults as if they are insane; the adults are usually singing loudly and crazily. It's quite the sight! But worth doing it every year! Santa always arrives with presents at the door while we are singing (sometimes it's hard to hear the doorbell or knocking b/c we are a little too obnoxious). The kids all run up to the door, knocking over anyone in their path, while screaming 'Santa.' They rip open their presents in excitement, showing everyone want they got. Once that chaos has calmed, we let the kids open all their other presents in another fashionable chaotic mess. This is not a place for quiet, shy people. Once we have cleaned up all the wrapping paper, checked to see if our child has all of his/her toys in a secured area or box, the adults get to play a game with their presents. We each bought a present according to our sex (guy/girl); draw a number and then open in order. However, we can steal presents away, hoping in the end to get the gift you wanted. This year I got a coffee mug with hot cocoa mix and mint cookies. Jeremy got some sort of tool he was excited about.
That night we stayed over at my parents house. Jeremy, my sister Becky, brother-in-law Geoff, and I stayed up until 2am and told stories that made us laugh until we cried. Mostly it was Jeremy making fun of me at Mexico or just the crazy stories from Mexico. It was something that the four of us hadn't done in ages. It's hard to do when you live in separate states and don't see each other that often.
Here are some of the pictures from Christmas Eve:
Here we are singing our carols.
Here's Logan opening his present from Santa.
Logan was having more fun playing in this tote than with his presents. Go figure.
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