Christmas Eve

I forgot to mention that we scrubbed the heck out of every corner of our house yesterday, because our friends were coming over for dinner (but I didn't take any pictures while they were here - silly me), so now our house is squeaky clean and it smells great. Walls, baseboards, the inside of the microwave. Ahhh. Maybe if we invited people over more often, then we wouldn't live in such a pigsty...

So, here it is, Christmas Eve (in a clean, clean house) and just like every year I shake my head and say, "How did it get to be the 24th already??" and "Where did December go??" and all that, but that's just the nature of the beast.

One of our traditions is to open one present on Christmas Eve, and another tradition is to have new pajamas to wear to bed on Christmas Eve. You can see how these two traditions merge perfectly to form one, pajama-opening tradition. Trev had actually chosen jammies as his gift to Clara. She loved them, which led to this moment:
Trev's jammies (foreshadowing a Lego Star Wars Christmas?) were enthusiastically received as well.
Cute, cute, cute.

We headed to Grammy and Grampy's for a fabulous dinner, light show, and chill time. With all of the hustling and bustling already out of the way, the 24th is the perfect day for relaxing, catching up on everyone's latest, and watching the cousins run around.
Christmas Eve Day whips by 23 times faster than the part of December that leads up to it. Before we knew it, it was time to make our way home to get started on those visions of sugarplums.

We hopped into jammies, set out some cookies, and then tracked Santa on NORAD for a bit.
Every year, once the wrapping is done, I sit, staring at the tree, listening to carols, enjoying the last of that lovely almost-Christmas feeling.