One More Sleep

What a day.  Each year, what a wonderful day.  It's Christmas Eve, and we started out with another gift from Santa Buc-ee:  Beaver Nuggets!

Maddie was off to Nate's to spend the day with his family, and she had a really great time.  They exchanged gifts, and went to their church service and did some games and just had a nice day celebrating.  Meanwhile, Mom and I were getting things ready for tomorrow's big gathering.  

Today we were doing a lot of set up for Christmas.  Mom's got the dining room ready, but there's a few more things to set up for decorations.  And there's the housecleaning, and of course all the food preparation as well.  And the wrapping.  Oh man, so much wrapping.  I had no idea we had so much wrapping!

But first, the treadmill.  While walking along on the treadmill, I watched everyone's favorite Christmas movie, "Rocky IV."  I actually finished it up while wrapping downstairs.  It is such a 1980's movie.  The music, the robot, the attempts to get along with the Soviet Union so we don't blow up the entire world... it's a definite step down from the previous Rocky movies, but it's still fun.  

As for the wrapping part?  I was still doing that on and off throughout the day, until midnight tonight.  Such is the price of Christmas!  While we were doing a lot of housework today, things were made easy with "A Muppet Christmas Carol" playing again on the television.  Second time we watched that one this season!

Okay, so here a picture of the LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy characters from the advent calendar this morning.  Maddie opened the last one, and it's Drax in a Christmas sweater.  This was a fun LEGO Advent calendar.  Many mornings, I was already playing that Guardians Christmas Special soundtrack on vinyl while Maddie was putting together the days' LEGO creation.  My favorite thing is still the candy cane because of the special.

I had to say goodbye to the Incredible Hulk pumpkin on the porch today.  He's been there a while, and he's doing just fine because he's never been carved.  But it's pretty much the end of fall season for sure, and that being said, the Incredible Hulk Pumpkin is now in the woods, retiring with his fellow pumpkins who are also in the woods and are... well, let's just say they're not doing great.

We went to the 4:00 Christmas Eve service.  We got there forty five minutes early, but that would have been too late to get a seat in the main auditorium... if it weren't for Pastor Lance saving us a few seats.  It was massively crowded, but we got in there and really enjoyed the service.

The Candlelight Service is a highlight of the year, and a really special time together as a church.  We were glad to make time to physically go there (rather than just watch on television).  There was a lot to do today, but we were happy we went to service.  And after that, we were a bit hungry, so it was off to another Christmas Eve tradition:  dinner at Wang's Chinese Restaurant.

It was also extremely busy there.  It took a while to get food, and there were people lined up to get their take-out, or even find a table.  We timed it just right, getting a seat right away.  And it was okay that we waited a bit, as we weren't in any hurry.  It was a nice meal together, a nice little tradition we started - probably started because of "A Christmas Story."

We got home, and we met Nate tonight as he came over for a tiny bit.  We got him a few LEGO gifts for Christmas that he appreciated, and he got Mom and I some things.  He got Mom some decorative gnomes, and he got me a Christmas ornament for the Star Wars tree, and a pretty good one at that!

 

It's Luke Skywalker from "The Mandolorian" television series, and it looks great already on our tree!  When Nate left, I gave Mom and Maddie a few gifts to celebrate Jólabókaflóðið, the "book flood" of Iceland.  Such a great tradition over there of giving books.  I got Maddie this "Monk" book that we might start reading tomorrow night.  And I got Mom this amazing Charles Dickens Christmas stories book, a large book with the original artwork in it.  Obviously it has "A Christmas Carol" within it, but the book also contains a few more related works.  We'll have fun reading those.

  

So here we are as in olden days, happy golden days... it's late, and we've been wrapping, cooking, decorating, cleaning - and all the other fun stuff between.  NORAD is tracking Santa, the Gävle Goat is still standing strong, the President is talking to kids on the phone about Santa, and everything's all wrapped and under the tree, stockings stuffed, and food ready to go. 

Maddie and I finished reading "Hogfather" tonight, and we said our prayers.  Only one more sleep 'til Christmas!