Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve Day at home putting the finishing touches on our sermons and worship services for the evening, running a few errands and then packing up for our vacation. We left the house at 4pm and headed to Belleview where Daddy dropped off Mommy and the boys for our Christmas Eve services at 5 and 7pm. Then he headed back to Ocala for his 6pm Christmas Eve service.

At BUMC, Parker helped Mommy with the Young Disciples' time at both services. Together we read one of the boys' favorite Christmas books from home:

Many people commented on the great job that Parker did in reading his part of the book. He held the portable microphone so naturally and read so confidently and clearly whenever it was his turn. Afterwards we had everyone join us in singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and handed out bookmarks and candy canes.

After Daddy was done with worship at DHUMC, he went up and loaded up the van with all the suitcases and presents and picked the rest of the family up in Belleview so we could head to Seffner. We swung through Burger King and ate in the car on the way; fortunately the traffic was light and we made it to Seffner by 10pm. We let the boys play for a little bit before bundling them off to bed. By 11:30pm they were asleep....

Then it was time to play "elf." Uncle Daniel and Aunt Dawn came up to help as we put out all of the presents around the tree for everyone for Christmas morning. Here's the presents for 15 people:

The last thing we did before heading off to bed was to fill up the boys' stockings and leave them by the fireplace. We made it to bed about 1:30am to catch our "nap" before the festivities in the morning!