Christmas Eve

As far as Christmas Eve's go, today has been real fun. Let's recap shall we?

Oh yeah, yesterday we took the boys outside to get some awesome pictures. Here's one, aren't they handsome??


After church, Carson was eating a corn dog for lunch. He made this design in his ketchup and said "Hey mom! Look, it's like the star when Jesus was born!!" So, even in ketchup we can have spiritual insight!!


On our way to Curtis and Shandy's house, we stopped at Thomas Sweet's grave. Tom is Sam's nephew who passed away 2 1/2 years ago. We brushed the snow off his headstone and put a Christmas gift bag next to it with a tag that had the following scripture written on it:
"And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.
And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind, and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.
And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." Alma 7:10-12


Then we ended up at Curtis and Shandy's house for a feast fit for several kings! Every year on Christmas Eve, Shandy's family has a fun tradition: I guess several years ago, Shandy's dad severed his right index finger on Christmas eve and ever since then, they have FINGER FOOD for dinner on Christmas Eve. Shandy, feel free to fill in the blanks here with some gruesome details! Anyhow, it was fun, as always.
Check out the spread!



A Christmas Eve tradition for the Clark family, is the Left/Right story. It's newly written every year to include details on the people who are in attendance at the party. I remember when I was getting my drivers license it said something like "Carrie is learning the difference between the LEFT blinker and the RIGHT blinker...." Everybody sits in a circle, with a white elephant-ish present and every time you hear the word 'left' or 'right', you pass your present that direction. Shandy wrote it this year and it was awesome! She even threw us a few curve balls because if she said "across" we had to pass our presents to the person across the circle from us. I ended up with an IMAX NASCAR DVD, which I traded with Cody because he got an iron! Score for me. Sam got some boxer shorts that said HoHoHo all over them-he acted annoyed but I think he's secretly looking forward to trying them on!! My mom got some HORRIBLE smelling cologne called "sex appeal" which is funny because, well, it's my mom!!


And, of course, the kids got to open a present tonight-matching pajamas. They were pretty excited on the ride home from Curtis' house, talking non stop. Once in bed, they fell fast asleep--I'm going to enjoy these years because pretty soon they will be staying up all night playing games like Curtis and I used to do!! I remember one time Curtis and I were anxiously awaiting 7:00am on Christmas day because that meant we could get up and see what Santa brought. I looked at my Strawberry Shortcake digital watch and was so excited because it was 6:00am!! Then I realized I was looking at it upside down and it was only 9:00pm. Holy, cow that was the longest night EVER!!!


Merry Christmas everybody, I'm sure we'll have some fun updates tomorrow as well!!