Christmas Eve

As I mentioned in the previous post, we have tons of pictures from our holiday. I've been taking my time going through them and have finally weeded out a few to show. This post will cover Christmas Eve Eve (or Tuesday, as some would call it) and Christmas Eve. We also had a gigantic snowstorm roll through at the beginning of the week, and thought it might be nice to document that as well.
The morning of the snowstorm Nora and I headed over to a Maine favorite- Reny's department store- and found this lovely snowsuit. We had been planning on buying one for quite a long time when this one presented itself to us; and really, what better time to buy one then in the midst of a nor'easter?

Nora and I bedded down inside our cozy apartment (Shane, being the fearless guy he was, had ventured south to do some Christmas errands). We played, napped, and watched Christmas movies. Snoopy (aka Charlie Brown Christmas) is Nora's favorite.

We also enjoyed our tree; it's still up at our apartment and within a day or two it will come down. We've had it up for long enough now that I don't feel so bad about throwing it out. Of course, the extra space it will free up isn't a bad thing, either.

The piglet ornament is from my house. When we were little we had the whole set of Winnie the Pooh ornaments, made from soft felt and perfect for small hands to discover on low branches of the tree. I think my Mom has divided them up, seeing as I only have one, but it was nice for Nora to be able to play with it this season.

This Oscar the Grouch ornament is a favorite of Shane's. He made it this year. Isn't he talented? (Just kidding. It was at least a couple of years ago that he constructed that ornament.)
Before heading to my parent's house for Christmas Eve, Nora did a little finger painting. I tried making homemade paint, and though it came out okay, it was very light and when it dried it cracked all over the place. Luckily, Santa brought Nora some new (real) finger paints.

Once we were at my parent's house, we had to take part in some outdoor play, what with all the new fallen snow. Shane had to jump off the porch, of course.

Nanny had bought new shovels for Nora and Kalen to 'play' with. Training them early, right Grampy?

Shane also had a new toy to play with- his new cross-country skis that he had bought with his Christmas money from his Mom. He spent a good portion of the afternoon skiing around and around my parent's field.

Finally, finally it was Christmas Eve! I scooted outside to catch this picture of the sunset:

before our big dinner of...
Christmas Eve sushi! A new tradition as of last year in our family, although if we're going to do it next year we're going to have to rethink how we order. We had a massively expensive amount of sushi. So much, in fact, that it was the only thing Shane ate for the next 36 hours.
I'm serious.

Ah, seaweed salad, how I love you.

I really wasn't kidding when I said we had a lot. This was one of three platters that we bought, along with seaweed salad, edamame and agedashi tofu for Hayley. For nine people. Yum. But yes, overkill.

After dinner it was time to open the traditional one present. This year the kids opened a present from Tara of...

Matching pajamas! Kalen and Wylie's actually match; Nora's are just super cute and the same style.

Of course, before we finished the night out Nora and Kalen had to do a little karate for Grampy.

Before bed the kids had one more important job to do- write to Santa! They spent a good amount of time writing important things to the big guy. Hopefully they got what they wanted- you'll find out in the next post!