Christmas Eve is celebrated at the Hunter household. This may not have been the best pic of us, but it captured how we were. Alec is fussing, "But, I don't want my picture taken!" James is staring adoringly at his big bro, whilst Paul and I smile/cringe.
We always make gingerbread houses and over the years the tradition has morphed into a sugar-driven frenzied competition for the "best house". Enthusiasm usually dies down for most after about 10 minutes, but the early part is riddled with 'hidden goodies' people sneak in and bought ahead of time to gain the upper hand (seriously, it's that important!).
Next comes the 'candy' game. Like a white elephant gift exchange, but with candy bars. This usually turns into a playful trading of one stupid candy that nobody really wants (really, we should play this BEFORE making the houses and eating candy).
And of course, Christmas Eve pajamas. My parents started this when we were young (along with the rest of the world), after realizing how ghetto we looked on Christmas morning in ragged old baggy t-shirts (we used to rip off one arm and call ourselves 'Nephi'-as costumed in the 'Living Scriptures' DVDs, so spiritual).The three babies had matching Mickey Mouse and Alec got Buzz Lightyear. We tried to take some pics, but Ben (as usual) got hungry and decided to munch on Kayden's leg. Kayden couldn't even fight back!
Hyped up on sugar (well, Alec anyway), we took the boys home for a bath where I got some cute pics of James in the tub. The joy of my life-his hair curls into little ringlets when wet! This excites me much more than Paul, who has curly hair and continually asks/nags when I'll be cutting James's mullet.
The boys were giggling before storytime, so I caught a sweet moment.
Now for the real fun. Paul had to put together Alec's big Christmas present from his granny & grandad. I'd be teasing Paul for a month about putting it together Christmas Eve and he kept telling me about his plans to do it in stages leading up to Christmas Eve, since Alec never went into the rock-covered backyard. Without me nagging, that never happened.Luckily, my cousins Danny & Sawyer volunteered to brave the freezing Vegas cold night (seriously-I think it got below 50!!) to spend a couple hours stretching springs out.
Bless 'em, they got it done!