Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has always been my favorite. Like way more than Christmas Day. Is that bad? Whatever, I'm not ashamed. My love for Christmas Eve started when I was a youngster and my preference has not changed over time. Between my family's Christmas Eve traditions and the anticipation of Santa coming, Christmas Eve rules.

The Hagee family really knows how to celebrate Christmas Eve. (We even acknowledge Christmas Eve Eve, yes you read that correctly, it's a thing). The normal Eve celebration usually started with us going to an afternoon movie, which Billy would then quote for us the rest of the evening no matter how many times we told him to SHUT UP. (We love him, it's fine) Then we would go to Target to purchase our presents for one another. This, as you can imagine, was always insane (in a good way). Lauren and I would pair up while Billy and Hannah shopped together - this started because we were all too poor to buy individual gifts for each other. Then we would run around like idiots looking for the best/funniest gifts. The best was when we would accidentally run into each other - this usually happened when we were all in the sports isle trying to figure out what to get for Dad. But basically what ended up happening was Billy would purposefully scream like a girl and we would all try to run away from each other while also trying to spy what was in each other's carts. People would look at us like we were crazy (because we were/are), which only made us laugh harder and Hannah probably peed her pants (this may or may not happen to her often - but lesbehonest, it's happened to all of us). Next we would go to our favorite pizzeria and then home to wrap our presents from Target - which usually included things like fake birds, posters of Zac Efron, shower caddies with a 99 cents sticker, and golf balls for Harlow. Next we would sit around the tree and open all our "family" presents while stuffing our faces with Jennifer's sugar cookies, peanut M&Ms, and chocolate chip cookies. We would end up laughing and laughing at the gifts we got one another and usually at one of the gifts from an Aunt or Uncle who obviously had no idea what to get us. The night then always ends with us in our new pajamas watching either A Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation.

See why I love Christmas Eve? Well last year for Jack's first Christmas he was able to enjoy some of those traditions. We chose to have his first Christmas in Texas so we could be surrounded by all of our family members - and it was fantastic. It also didn't hurt that the weather was much better in Texas than it was Utah.

  

Baby Jack's first Christmas

This Christmas, however, we wanted to be in Utah. First, we didn't want to mess with getting presents to and from Texas and two, it is our home (for the time being). Plus Garrett and I wanted to make some of our traditions this year and we figured they should start at our house. Unfortunately though, the Jackster was a little sicky on Christmas Eve so we got kind of a late start. Our morning and afternoon pretty much consisted of us making a doctor's appointment, wiping Jack's nose, driving to the only doctor's office open on Christmas Eve, wiping Jack's nose, waiting forever, finally seeing the doctor, learning Jack had a sinus infection, wiping his nose some more, dropping off his prescription and then waiting in line to pick it up. As fun as that sounds (and I know you're jealous), we really don't want that to become a Christmas Eve tradition for the Blanchard family.

Luckily once Jack had taken his medicine and a long nap he seemed to be feeling better. Thank goodness. So we figured we better get the party going, and decided that pizza for dinner was a tradition we would like to keep. Provo has a few pizza options and while The Brick Oven isn't my fav (SLAB all the way Provo peeps) it sounded perfect. Luckily we got there 30 minutes before their early closing time and were able to enjoy some delicious cheesy pizza. After we took a drive around town looking at Christmas lights while jamming to Cee Lo Green's Christmas CD (it's kind of awesome).

 

The tickle monster usually appears at dinner.

Growing up Garrett didn't open any presents until Christmas Day, so we combined our traditions and decided that in our family the kids will be allowed to open one present each on Christmas Eve. So once we were back at home and settled down we let Jack open his one present from us. I'm sure everyone will be totes shocked to find out what Jack's present was...

 

Christmas pajamas! I was so excited about these pajamas, I thought they were beyond adorable. I actually almost bought a matching pair for myself (I'm not joking, Hanna Anderson has "Match With Me" pajamas - too bad I'll never spend $78 + shipping on pajamas). Jack was excited about his pajamas and immediately pointed out the Christmas trees. Smart boy. Once he was ready for bed we of course had to get Santa's snack all set up. He was sups excited to share all our Christmas goodies with Santa and he knew exactly what to do when I took out Santa's plate and glass. 

  

Last, but of course not least, we had to leave a snack for Santa's reindeer. We chose apples. Ya'll are probably thinking, "What the? Who leaves the reindeer apples?" and I get it. However, in one Christmas book we'd been reading there was an illustration and in it there was an elf feeding some of the reindeer apples. Did I notice this? No, but Jack did and I wanted to make Christmas really magical for him so I knew if I told him to leave apples outside for the reindeer that he would get it. Plus I figure reindeer are kinda like horses, right? Horses like apples so reindeer probs like them too. 

 

As Christmas Eve came to a close I felt really good about our entire day - sick baby and all. Of course all that was left was for us to do was to go get nestled snug in our beds so we could have visions of sugar plums dance in our heads. Um I wish. We had a mountain of gifts to wrap and a kitchen to set up. Garrett and I were up working for a good three hours getting everything ready. But somehow it wasn't so bad (even though we were drowning in piles of toys and kitchen pieces). We had fun sharing past Christmases memories and talking about how we couldn't wait to see Jack's reaction in the morning.