Christmas Eve and Reindeer Chow

Christmas eve was great, the family helped to clean the house earlier that week so I had a "relatively" clean house for Christmas. Every year I get the label of "cleaning Nazi" on Christmas Eve. It is my last chance to have a clean house for Christmas, also one of the last times it gets cleaned before tax season, when no cleaning gets done at all. Hopefully this tax season will be better since I instilled a chore chart for the kids this past fall.

We baked a ham, I made a loaf of rye bread (I am in pursuit of the perfect rye like what we had in Germany), vegetables, rolls, and baked potatoes. Emma declared it was a "feast". We also got the camera out when the reindeer chow got spread out on the grass. Santa always gets his cookies, but seldom do the reindeer get to eat.

Check out the chow in midair on the next picture.

Emma read us all some traditional Christmas stories.

After Carl read to us The Real Story of Christmas, written by Cleon Skousen. It is the 40th year that it has been read in the Westergard family on Christmas Eve. A long standing family tradition.

Afterwards the kids all got to open a present, Emma and Anna opened jammies and James opened blocks of wood. You have never seen a kid so excited to see blocks of wood. It is basswood that you use for carving.

Finally by about 10:30 the evening came to an end for the kids and the fell asleep.