Christmas Eve 2025

Since the Governor gave all State workers the day off, Jeff ended up being able to spend the day with us! So we decided to take the girls to see Santa, and then to the Chick-fil-A with the play place, since we’re not usually on that side of town.

We always loving visiting the Santa and Mrs. Claus at Esposito’s, and we were lucky they were still there today on Christmas Eve. We always love looking at all the amazing trees and ornaments, and wandering around in the nursery out back. Emmie was excited to visit with Santa, but Addie was a little standoffish. Eventually though, she was happy to sit on the little bench in front of him with sister. And they were adorable!

And every year we pick out a new ornament for the tree while we’re there. Usually, it’s kind of a group decision, but no one really had an opinion today. I however loved this sparkly golden pretzel, and everyone agreed it was a good choice, so I got my pick!

We hit up Chick-fil-A around 11am for an early lunch, and the girls loved getting to play for a while. We also had $30 in CFA gift cards, so that was super helpful, and we only had to pay about $9 remaining.

After lunch, all of us settled down for a little nap at home. I also took some time to wash up some dishes. Then we headed over to the church for our Christmas Eve service. We were actually there early for worship team rehearsal, as I sang and Jeff ran the computer on the tech team. Grammy and Papa also joined us at church tonight, and we were glad to have them. We had a very cute nativity by some precious kiddos, and a very impressive kindergartner recited Luke 2:8-20 from memory!

Pastor Bo did a special teaching time just for the kiddos up front. Hayden was excited to see his Daddy up front, and also excited to see his Mommy sing a special song later too.

After the candlelight service portion (no pics, because I was on stage singing), Addie and her little bestie wanted a “family photo” together by the Christmas tree like they saw everyone else doing. Her mom later told me when they went out to take their own family photos, she kinda had a meltdown saying, “I ALREADY got my photo with Addie!” So hilarious 😂

Since we were home by 5:30 or so, I had plenty of time to cook dinner. I made the viral Turkish pasta that’s been officially added into our rotation for a while now, and I no longer even need a recipe for. It’s very simple anyways, but now I have everything memorized too.

The girls had bath time after dinner, I mixed up a bowl of dill dip to take to my mom’s house tomorrow, and I sent Jeff out to the Dollar Tree to get stocking stuffers, since we hadn’t remembered or had time to do that yet. The girls were talking about moving the angel on the advent calendar tomorrow, but were super excited when I explained that they were actually supposed to do it today! We got a day off somewhere, and even though they had already moved an “ornament” today, they did the angel together tonight.

Jeff and I now have a list of six or seven things we need to accomplish to finish up all the Christmas stuff tonight. Things like finish wrapping presents, stuff the stockings, wash some dishes, put Sheppy in the manger in their final spot beside the tree, and draw up some “tickets” for the girls to open for their big experience gifts this year!