Christmas Eve was on Sunday this year

Hope Bible Church hosted breakfast before the service on Christmas Eve morning.

Everyone took a dish or two.

We put them all together and had a feast.

Being in a festive mood and loving the fellowship of other believers,

we ate and talked and relished the gift that God gave us.

To celebrate the birth of Jesus together is one of life's greatest pleasures.

Our worship time was heavenly.

The music, the sermon, and the taking of the Lord's Supper were transporting.

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Afterwards, 

we hurried home to rest and get ready for our family Christmas Eve party.

I finally got the house decorated.

It takes me so much longer now that I've gotten so old,

but I love every minute of decorating so I slowly persevere.

The result is absolutely magical.

That's what Moms and Grams do...create the magic of Christmas.

My tree was a real source of stress this year.

As stated in a previous post, 

Erika and Archie got it lit back up when they came for our party.

We called it the miracle of Christmas Eve.

Because we had already done the grazing thing at the church party,

I decided to shake things up a bit.

We had David and Erika's delicious tortellini soup and cornbread,

a big pot of Swedish meatballs,

and a large portion of Macaroni and Cheese.

For dessert, I served leftover sweets from the party.

All were well-fed and very happy with the good food.

Below is my tablescape.

Partaking!

Here are two of the guys I feed quite often.

They were quite impressed.

Oh, and I had the lime sherbert punch table set up with Doritos and Cheetos.

Always a huge hit!

On Christmas Eve we always play a game involving a huge cash prize.

We introduced this one last year and brought it back again.

Mark taped off a large grid on the floor with different boxes.

Each box was for a different amount of money.

There were ones, a five, a ten, a twenty, and a fifty.

Each person had to roll a can of Coke and try to hit the desired prize.

This year the grand prize winner was Eli.

What can I say?

What a grand and glorious day it was!

Time to let Santa come.

We all fell into bed exhausted.

🎅