Family Party In Alabama - Christmas Eve Traditions

I'm going to blog about Christmas Eve in a second.  But first we have to go back in time a little bit and look at pictures from Tuesday December 22.  This is the day we took family pictures and then had lunch at the cabins where my sisters were staying.  

My dad took these pictures at the cabin and I wanted to show them to you.  This is what the kitchen/living room area looked like.  As you can see, cabin is not a good word to describe this place.  These were more like vacation homes. (And sorry, but I just have to point out how good I look from behind in this picture.  Losing weight is so worth it for pictures like this.)

 Here's Derrick looking all cute.

 And Brandon looking pretty cute too. You kind of can see it in this picture, but there is a picture with lots of different helicopters on the wall.  That was the funny thing about these cabins, they were decorated with lots of army aviation memorabilia.

 Here's the living room area.

 And the screened in porch.

 And the front porch.

This wont apply to most of you, but if you are ever in Alabama and have a military ID you can reserve these cabins from the Fort Rucker MWR.  The two bedroom cabins are only $80 a night which is a steal of a deal.

Okay now lets talk about Christmas Eve.  

First off I need to tell you something about my family.  We never really had a good Christmas Eve Tradition.  About the only consistent tradition we had was when my mom would bemoan our lack of good traditions.  She was a convert to the LDS church.  Her family had joined the church with her when she was 9, but they were mostly inactive by the time she was a teenager.  She would often imagine what life would be like if she was married to a faithful church member and raising her children in the gospel.  

So when her family just went to see a movie on Christmas Eve, she'd imagine that in her future family all her children would be dressed in matching red outfits and sit around the piano singing Christmas songs. Then everyone would read the Christmas Story in the Bible and be so touched by the spirit.  

Did that ever happen?  Not really.  Most of the time we'd watch a movie and my mom would wonder where she went wrong with all of us.  

Then nine years ago I was invited to Brandon's family's Norwegian Christmas Eve Party and my life has never been the same.  I've written about the Christmas Eve Parties a lot over the years.  But I know some of you are new this year so I'll sum it up for you.  Brandon's Dad's Dad is from Norway and so the family has always celebrated Christmas Eve with a big party full of traditional food.  You can read about a past party here. 

After I discovered Brandon's family's way of doing Christmas Eve I never spent Christmas Eve with my family again.  My family was always invited to the party and some years they'd join us and some years they didn't.  As my other siblings got older and got married they've moved away and started their own Christmas Traditions.  

So this would be the first Christmas Eve that we were all spending all together in ten years.  The last thing I wanted was for us to revert back to our old ways of doing nothing and then listening to my mom wish we had better traditions.    

I was hoping to plan some sort of family outing for the day, but the weather was not cooperating with that plan.  Over nine inches of rain had fallen overnight. There were flood warnings all over the place. There were severe weather warnings too. There'd even been a tornado warning for the area north of Fort Rucker.  So we'd be staying put for the day.  Which was fine anyway, because it seemed like everyone just wanted to hang out rather than go exploring.  

Even with all the rain we were happy with the weather.  It was hard to remember it was December when it was still 60 degrees outside. Emily and Hillary made up a little song, "Barefoot in Alabama on Christmas Eve."

This was the last day we had the cabins so my siblings took care of packing and checking out of those.  Then everyone showed up at my house for a day of fun.  We'd planned to have everyone sleep over at my house that night.  

I love this picture with all the shoes lined up by the front door.  Lots of shoes by the door means that something really fun is going on.

We started out with a pizza making competition. We were supposed to have pizza the day before, but then everyone started talking about how well they could make pizza.  So we moved it to today so we'd have more time for everyone to prefect their creations.  The pizzas were super good and disappeared within minutes.

I didn't want the whole day to be just about all the traditions that I've acquired over the past 9 years so I asked everyone to come up with at least one tradition that they wanted to share. Lindsey's tradition was that they always make ginger bread men.  Brandon had made the cookies the day before and so all we had to was put the frosting on them.

The kids really like that.  Veronica just wanted me to put frosting on her cookie and then she'd lick it off and ask for more.

Here's Charlotte decorating hers.

Asher's turned out pretty cute.

After the ginger bread men were done we all cleaned the house.  I had everyone pull a popsicle stick with a job written on it.  The house was clean in no time.  Then we got everything set up for a talent show.  

This is the tradition that my Mom and Dad wanted to share.  We would do this at my Grandma Mary Ann's house when I was a teenager.  I was surprised by how well all 22 of us fit in my living room.

My parents started out by singing Oh Come all Ye Faithful in Portuguese. Both of them have been studying hard to learn the language before their mission.  My dad still remembers it from when he was a missionary over 30 years ago, but my mom has been learning it for the first time.

Then it was my family's turn.  I said that my talent was putting together this whole visit. Brandon's talent was making lots of the yummy food that we'd all been eating. Our kids were the real stars of our family's part of the show.  Lydia got up and did some jumping tricks.

Then Charlotte did some.

Then I called out, "Derrick, do you want to do something?"  He yelled back with "Yes!" and ran in from the kitchen where he'd been playing with his trains.  He climbed up on the wicker basket/seat and did a flying leap off.  Then he ran back into the kitchen. I was so surprised that he'd participated like that.

Veronica didn't care so it was Lindsey's turn next.  She showed us the manuscript for a book that she wrote. she also showed us a video she'd made with her boys.

Emily and David were next.  They sang a song together while David played the guitar.

Asher's talent was to show everyone how to play dreidel.

Veronica was acting super tired so I put her to bed and in the process missed Bridger and Tutus's talents.

Billy said that his talent was getting married to Becca.  But then someone brought up a personal essay that Billy had written for his English Class.  So we talked Becca into reading us Billy's essay titled "The Coldness."  It was all about the unheated room that he had to sleep in as a kid.  We all had similar experiences since my parent's house was notoriously cold. We all laughed super hard at Billy's descriptions of learning to live with the cold.

Hillary had filmed herself making sauces at work (she's a saucier at a banquet kitchen now.) And Joe played the piano.

The talent show ended with all of us singing Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer.

As soon as the talent show ended Brandon and Hillary went to work in the kitchen.  I went to work finding all of our pretty serving dishes.  I love fancy stuff, but most of it has been boxed up due to little children. But it's not Christmas without fancy dishes.

During all the hubbub Emily let Charlotte and Lydia sit by her and feel baby Hazel in her tummy.   I have the only girls on my side of the family so Charlotte and Lydia are looking forward to having a girl cousin.  They thought it was so funny to feel her move.  They weren't even three yet when I had Veronica so they barely remember feeling her in my tummy. And they have no memory of when I was pregnant with Derrick.  

Then it was time to eat.  I love having a big dinner on Christmas Eve.  We had a spiral cut ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing (that Hillary made from scratch) and rolls.

Everyone crowded around our big table in the garage.  When everyone was seated we went around the room and asked everyone what their favorite thing had been during the year.

It was so great to have everyone together.

After dinner we went back in the living room.  There was kind of a lull in the entertainment and Lindsey started interviewing everyone on what their goals were for the next year, the next 10 years, and what we would do if the sky was the limit.  This isn't the first time she's done this and usually I struggle to come up with anything.  Thanks to the kids an the Army I've been in survival mode for the past few years.  Usually I say that my goal is to get some goals. So I was really happy when I was able to say that I actually had some goals.  I told her that I want to get something published this year. (So now I have to go out and do that - EEK)  I still struggled with the 10 year and sky's the limit goal, but Lindsey complemented me on my progress.

Then it was time for Emily's tradition.  20 years ago we'd been at a family party at my Grandma Mary Ann's and my aunt Karen had us all sing the 12 days of Christmas.  Instead of the usual words we'd substituted in what we wanted for Christmas. The song ended up being really funny. My dad had filmed the whole thing and over the next few years we'd watch it over and over and over again.  We'd even show it to our friends.

Emily had shared the song game with her In-laws and they thought it was really fun.  So she wanted to do it again with us.  We all knew it was going to be fun, but I don't think we imagined how fun it would be.

Right off the bat Emily asked Hillary what she wanted for Christmas.  All week long we'd been avoiding talking to Hillary and Joe about the fact that they are probably getting married. Pretty much everyone knows it's going to happen, but since it's not official we all just avoided talking about it. So we were all a little surprised when Hillary replied with a little mumble, "I'd like an engagement ring."

Emily jumped right on that and started singing "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me - A diamond engagement ring."  After a four days of not talking about it, we all seemed excited at this opportunity to express our support for Joe to pop the question to Hillary.  With every verse we sang, "And a diamond engagement ring" with more gusto.

By the end this is what the song sounded like.
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
12 offers on the house (Emily and David)
11 Black hawks (Me and Brandon)
10 PS4's (John)
9 iphones (Ani)
8 French Horns (Billy)
7 Santa Claus' (Charlotte)
6 Golden Lizards (Asher)
5 Puppies (Rocklond)
4 Cardboard Castles (Lydia)
3 Fighting clothes (Bridger)
2 Missionary suits (Mom and Dad)
1 And A DIAMOND ENGAGEMENT RING!!!

We all laughed for a long time and David said, "you can all send your apology letters to Joe now."

For the past several nights Brandon and I (but mostly Brandon) had been making treats for this evening.  Everyone had been asking me when they would finally get to eat those, and I kept telling them they were for Christmas Eve. We brought out the card table and put the treats on to it.  As always the big hit was the Rice Creme. But everything else was good too.

The kids all enjoyed the treats.

Brandon and I put on a funny little Christmas movie about a turtle that Brandon made with his brother and friends in high school.  That reminded my siblings about all of our crazy movies they made as kids.  I happened to have a copy of some of them.  Billy found it and put it on.  The movies are terribly embarrassing, but everyone had a good time laughing at themselves.  (I am so glad I'm not on any of those videos.)

Then we moved the Christmas Tree out into the middle of the room for Brandon's tradition.  We all held hands and walked around the tree singing Christmas Carols.

My favorite was when we sang "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas"  I'd been looking forward to this moment all month.  We sang:

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

Brandon led us all through the Norwegian Song about getting the house and clothes ready for Christmas.  He's assumed the roll of the Dad who tries to teach the song and it's meaning to all the guests but no one really cares what he's saying.  He was the only one singing anything close to the correct lyrics while the rest of us joined me in singing gibberish.  (Maybe I should have a goal to actually learn the lyrics to the song this year.)

As far as my mom knew this was the end of the party, but we all had one last surprise in store for her.  Everyone hurried to change into pajamas and then meet back in the living room.  When my mom came out of the guestroom Emily started playing the piano and the rest of us sang Christmas Bells are Ringing.  When we were done I told my mom, "We are finally fulfilling your dream of all us us singing Christmas Carols on Christmas Eve."  We'd even thought about having matching pajamas, but decided that was just too complicated to pull off.

My mom sat down and we all sang Christmas carols for a long time.  There was a really special spirit in the room.  We didn't want it to stop so when we were done with carols we decided to do a spontaneous reenactment of the nativity scene.

It was like we had planned it all along. Within seconds everyone had decided which parts they would play and even thrown together costumes. I couldn't help filming it. (Sorry it's so rough and dark.)

Finally it was time to start settling down.  Everyone was going to sleep over at my house.  We figured we could all squish in for one night.  It worked out that each family would share a room. This was actually another tradition of sorts.  When I was growing up my family did have one true Christmas Tradition.  It dated back to when I was little.  We'd lived in a one bedroom house and my parents had slept in the bedroom while Lindsey, Emily and I shared a couch bed in the living room.  On Christmas Eve we'd sleep in my parent's room so that we wouldn't see Santa Claus when he came to deliver presents in the living room. 

Even after we moved to a house with more bedrooms we still continued our tradition of sleeping in my parents room on Christmas Eve.  As we got older we would sleep in our own rooms, but meet in their room before going into the living room to open presents. 

So having each family sleep together in one room was a call back to those days when we were little and would sleep in our parents room on Christmas Eve.

I'd figured out sleeping arrangements earlier. My parents still had the guest room and Hillary slept on their floor.  Lindsey's family slept in Charlotte and Lydia's room.  They had an air mattress that I'd borrowed from a friend.  The boys shared one bunk and Ani got the other.   Emily and David were in Derrick and Veronica's room.  They'd brought some little mattresses to sleep on.  Billy and Becca slept on the futon in the toyroom and Joe got the living room couch. 

All my kids were excited to sleep on the floor in my room.  We usually have one or two of them join us in our bed every night anyway so they were pretty excited to start out in our room.  Honestly I've told my mom to never feel bad that we had a one bedroom house or that I slept on the floor/couchbed when I was little.  My kids have their own rooms and beds and I still find them asleep on the floor, or on the living room floor, or in another bed half the time. 

We knew it'd be pretty hard to put the kids to bed after all the sugar and excitement so we turned on the Santa Clause for everyone to watch if they wanted to.  That move is deceptively boring.  Sure there is some fun Santa stuff that goes on, but a lot of it is full of adults talking. We thought it would be a good one to get the kids to fall asleep during.  Lindsey and Emily were both able to get their kids to go to sleep, but mine made it through the movie and were still running around at 11:00.  The only thing that got them to calm down was for me to lay down with them.  I think all five of us were asleep within 30 seconds of me laying down. 

About and hour later I moved into my bed and fell asleep for the rest of the night.  And I'd need that sleep because Christmas Day was going to be even more wonderful than Christmas Eve had been.