On Christmas Eve, we started our evening by going to the candlelight service at our church. Nathan and Charlotte were excited to be able to go to "big" church with us and to have their own candles to light at the end of the service. They were both really good throughout and went down front for the children's sermon, but soon after that, Charlotte fell asleep in my arms. She ended up sleeping through the whole thing and didn't really wake up until we were putting her in the car! And then Nathan fell asleep in the car on the way to Mama and Papa's house. So at least they both had good naps before our busy Christmas Eve!
We go to the candlelight service at Prestonwood every year. And every year, it is a wonderful experience. But this year was INCREDIBLE! First of all, the music was beautiful. There were two men who were the main singers for the night. I've never seen them there before, but their voices were so pretty. My favorite song is Oh Holy Night, but only when it is sung by someone amazing. Well, these two men mastered it. I had chills all over and wanted to stand up and cheer for them when it was over. It was that good! And then, there were two videos that were played that were so different from each other but so special. The first was the story off the birth of Jesus, but it was acted out by children. They were in homemade type costumes and the editing of the video was so neat because you could tell the kids weren't over-coached. There were cute little mistakes. It was such a sweet and innocent characterization and so sincere. I absolutely loved it! The next video they showed was much more mature. It was the story of Jesus' birth and his life all the way up to his Crucifixion and resurrection. But what was so neat about this video was that it was played to the song "Mary Did You Know?" which is told from Mary's point of view. It was so touching, and pretty much everyone cried through the whole thing. I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful it was. Here is the link to the video...hope I did it right! I guess that since I have a son, it really struck me...just think about what Mary went through with her baby boy...
After the service, we headed over to Mama and Papa's house for a chili dinner and PRESENTS! Nathan and Charlotte have been waiting for the first day to open presents. We have a countdown calendar, and Nathan was so excited the day was finally here! This was an especially great year because Jen, Alexandra and Robert were here along with Carrie, Chris and Pearce. It was a houseful of crazy kids! Nathan and Robert played Santa and helped pass out the presents. We started with the youngest so Pearce got to go first. By the end of the night, everyone was playing with everything, Wayne and Chris were putting together walkers and baby beds, the kids were pushing each other around in Pearce's new wagon, and it was pretty much chaos, but lots of fun!
Oh and the way we ended the night was with me realizing that as Wayne was loading up the car for us to go home, that I put the keys in my diaper bag, which he locked in the trunk with everything else. So, Dad had to take us home in his car, Wayne got his spare set, drove with Dad back to his house to get the car, and then back home. By that time, it was pretty late and we still had to do our "Santa" stuff to get ready for the next morning! Never a dull moment when I'm involved!!!
