Christmas Eve

Jeff had to work Christmas Eve, which stunk, but I made up my mind that Braeden and I would have a rockin' good day, just the two of us. The night before, B helped me pick up the house so that I wouldn't spend all day Friday fretting over it. Just before bedtime, I put Mulled Cider in my brand-new slow cooker (thanks, Mom & Dad - the thing is fabulous!), so that we woke to a deliciously spicy aroma Christmas Eve morning.

We started the day with waffles and the Charlie Brown Christmas specials. Braeden was given the uber-important task of taping down the presents I wrapped for his cousins. We took turns playing video games on the XBox for a while, then I threw a casserole in the oven. While that cooked, Braeden helped me mix up a batch of Peanut Butter Cookies.

Next on the agenda was the highly anticipating Decorating of the Gingerbread Village. Santa kindly consented to let Braeden open this particular gift early so he could play with it Christmas Eve. We also made a special trip out to buy extra candy to make the village more colorful.

First, we laid out all the ingredients on saucers:

Then I mixed up the icing (such messy stuff, that!) and started to piece together the houses. Braeden's job was to decorate them however he pleased, and he did a wonderful job.  

We wrapped up the evening with Jim Carrey's version of A Christmas Carol (a bit frightening at first, Braeden said - but I convinced him to watch it all with me, and thankfully he did not have nightmares!) I got so tickled at him - he was worried about the time. We kept up with NORAD's tracking of Santa off and on all evening, and Braeden feared that Santa wouldn't come if he didn't go to bed soon - but I couldn't get him to go to sleep once he went to bed! Finally I crawled in bed with him (fully clothed, with an alarm set in case I crashed myself), and waited for him to drift off into Sugarplum Land. The moment he quit fidgeting, he zonked, finally leaving me time to get presents under the tree and tidy up the house for Christmas Day.

To be continued...