So Long Traditional Christmas Eve

For all of my life, Christmas Eve has been spent at Mom's.  When she moved to an apartment, we did the party in the social room just across the hall.  This year, Mom thought she would prefer people to come in smaller groups. Umm, well, I don't exactly have a small group, but I signed up for the noon spot and brought along White Castles and fudge.  Ol' Mother Hubbard and her crew came at that time and Tim and Ashely.  Sometimes life happens in ways you don't understand.  It is strange to have so few pictures here of Christmas Eve.  Ah, life.

Our littlest Pixie wasn't feeling well, so we're missing a couple in this picture.

Mom nearly has more drink choices then the Sav A Step- our attempts to get her to drink.  She only wants to drink hot chocolate.

 I keep a few things at Mom's for them to play with when they visit.

 They color Mom pictures and she likes to put them up in the apartment.

 I try to find a little something that she can give them as gift.  They spent quite a bit of time trying to catch the ball in the cup.

 I returned on Christmas Day to bring her beloved fried turkey.  Laurie Lou and Tony and Becky stopped by, but alas, I had not brought my camera.

The Friday night before Christmas the head cook at the soup kitchen was sick. That was my night to do our traditional Blackbean Omelet Suppper with Ol' Mother Hubbard.  I asked if she and kids would like to help before we headed to her house.  We had fun and they were a big help.

For real, this would be the last year to celebrate in the house they have now.  I had decided to gift them with a winter dinner date, but wanted a little something for them to unwrap.  Then I decided it would be nice commemorate our years of blackbean omelet Christmas suppers.  Now bacon ornaments you can find, but not so much omelets, ha.  I happened on a little Annalee ornament of a gingerbread man with an apron to his ankles and  a big chef's hat.  Ahhhhh, perfect. Only one on the stand, so I nervously turned the stand, and there were three more!  Perfect.

And..... this was the big highlight of our Christmas morning.  I should have had ten kids.

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright.