Christmas Eve Recital

Christmas Eve we started a new tradition.  This year we got a piano, and my kids have finally started taking music lessons.  With all sorts of Christmas songs being practiced, I decided we would have a family recital as part of our Christmas Eve traditions.  It was great.  We ran some last minute errands, cleaned up, and Darren ran to the store to buy some fun foods.  Egg Nog, Chocolate milk, shrimp, cheese balls, popcorn in the tins, pistachios, chocolate orange sticks,  oranges.  I feel so blessed. I was the most prepared this Christmas than I have ever been.  Two things made the difference this year.  First I went Black Friday shopping in Utah and got 90% of my shopping done.  When I brought all the gifts in my mom offered to wrap them! So she, Malinda, and Makayla wrapped 90% of the gifts in about an hour.  The 2nd thing was online shopping.  Usually I love an excuse to go out and go shopping, but this year I just wanted to try and not run around like crazy.  So I bought almost everything else online.  It was awesome! I also tried to do it early so I wasn't freaking out the last couple days paying extra for shipping.  It definitely helped.  All  the little things added up and it made for a relaxing holiday season.  I only had one secret errand to run the day before Christmas Eve.