On Christmas eve we went over to Matt's mom's place to visit and exchange gifts. The girls once again got spoiled by their gram, Auntie Anne, Chris, Uncle Johnny and Aunt Annette.
After my mother in law's we went to church for their Christmas eve service. It was beautiful! They had a live nativity scene and amazing Christmas songs. It was like we were at a Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. Loved it!
Lastly, we went to Uncle Lou and Aunt Sandy's place for their evening traditional dinner they have every year. Uncle Lou is Czechoslovakian and they have many nice Christmas eve traditions, which was really neat to experience with the family.
First family members and friends break off a small piece of the opłatek wafer and give it to one another along with a blessing. Breaking off and exchanging part of opłatek with someone is symbol of forgiveness between two people and is meant to remind participants of the importance of Christmas, God, and family.
Secondly, everyone passes a bowl of sour soup around and you enjoy that. It was really good, kinda tasted like what sauerkraut soup would taste like with some added touches. The girls love sauerkraut, so they ate most of mine lol!
Next Aunt Sandy passed around sweet bobalki - Slovak Bread Balls with Poppyseeds and Honey. Those were also really good! If that wasn't enough to fill you up, then there was salad, veggies, bread, garlic mashed potatoes, ham, three different kinds of fish, shrimp and all the desserts! I'm probably forgetting something too, but as you can imagine, everyone was stuffed by time dinner was done lol! It was all delicious though!
Cousin Jeff is a chef and he along with his gf Lottie made the fish and mashed potatoes. I never had orange roughy fish, but the way he cooked it would make any fish taste amazing and those potatoes are still making my mouth water. I'm going to try making them that way for New Years Eve. Wasn't sure if we'd be able to make it, but I'm so glad that we did. The girls were really good and had a blast playing with everyone. Thanks so much for having us!
Matt and the girls with Aunt Sandy on Christmas Eve
Being silly
Alaina with her Uncle Lou
Bella often ran up to her Uncle Lou and gave him hugs. It was so cute!
Alaina's new best friend lol
Good times
Hugs
Loved being thrown up in the air by Uncle Lou
Opening gifts
Giving Aunt Sandy hugs
Opening her gift
We didn't get home til like midnight. The girls were good and tired, so we hurried up read "The Night Before Christmas." left out milk and cookies for Santa, oats for the reindeer, and to bed they went. That's when the work began lol! Matt made us some coffee, had A Christmas Story playing on tv and then we helped Santa give the girl's a wonderful Christmas. It was a very busy, but WONDERFUL Christmas eve/day. Happy Birthday Jesus!
Santa came!
