The Eve of Christmas

     One thing we discovered about the holidays here in Germany is that our American holiday of Christmas Eve, which is December 24th, is the German's Christmas Day.  So while we were getting ready for Santa to arrive and open presents on Christmas Day, December 25th, the Germans were already celebrating.  

     We spent our Christmas Eve baking cookies, making homemade granola, giving gifts to our neighbors, watching Christmas movies, and just enjoying the day.

     One of the traditions I have started with my family is a family Christmas Eve gift.  In it there are new Christmas pajamas for everyone, some hot cocoa, popcorn and snacks, and also a new game for us to play that night.  This year we got Jenga to play.  I usually wrap it up way before Christmas Eve.  This year, our little Elves, Zippy and ZuZu brought it, along with some other little Christmas Eve gifts for the kiddos to open.  I let the kiddos open the small gifts, but we save the family gift for later in the day.

     After some breakfast, Kinley and I started on baking up some cookies and granola to hand out to our neighbors.

We made some Peanut Butter Cookies, Snickerdoodles, and Gingerbread Madeleines.

I added some of my mom's famous Ohio Buckeye candies too.

We also made some Gingerbread Granola.

Boxed and bagged them all up and delivered them.

The kiddos having some fun

Time to open the family gift...

I think they are happy!

Playing a few rounds of Jenga

After Jenga, the kiddos went and put on their new PJs, then we headed over to our neighbor's house to exchange gifts.  One of the gifts I got was a big box of After Eight Mints. 

 I have never heard of these before, but they are DELISH!

After gifts, it was time to come home and say goodbye to our little elves and get ready for Santa's arrival.  We set out some chocolate milk, cookies, and carrots for Rudolph.

Then off to bed they went to dream of dancing sugarplums.