Visiting Santa on Christmas Eve

I’m going to try to keep this brief, since we have so much left to do tonight after an already busy day, but you know I always write too much anyways…

Jeff did a quick grocery run first thing this morning (no pick-up slots were available), and the boys always sleep in, so I just made oatmeal for the girls and I for breakfast.

Then we dressed the girls up in fancy Christmas dresses, and took them for a little surprise visit to Santa at Esposito’s! (He’s always our favorite one, and it’s such an easy, low-key place to see him.) We didn’t tell Emmie where we were going, but she spotted him first, and got so excited and ran to him before I could even catch up! She chatted with him for about five minutes, but Addison didn’t want to let go of her dad or her brother the whole time.

And check out these frozen water fountains out in front of the store, they looked so cool.

We had Uncle Maddio’s for an early lunch (the boys requested good pizza, and they agreed this hit the spot), and then went to spend the whole rest of the day with Nana & PopPop for all of Christmas Eve.

These three snuggled up on the couch together were so sweet, watching “Elf” for a few minutes.

Jeff laid down with Addison for her naptime, and Emerson and the boys baked some more cookies with Nana, and then Nana and I wrapped up a bunch of presents.

When we first got there, Nana and I got a giant pork tenderloin seasoned and into the oven to roast for a few hours. The house smelled amazing all afternoon, and since we had an early lunch, everyone was hungry early, so we had an early dinner, around 4:30pm 🙂 And it was delicious!

And then it was time to open presents! And there may have been way too many presents, but it was a great Christmas Eve!

This was Emerson’s “big” present from Nana & PopPop, and definitely her favorite – it’s a Mirabel (from the Disney movie, “Encanto”) costume, complete with purse, earrings, belt, & glasses, and she’s just so stinking adorable in it!

Emerson went to sleep super easily when we got home tonight, but Addison has been fighting for a while. I’m hoping by the time I’ve finished writing this post, she will have finally given in, and be ready to lay down. We’ve still got more presents to wrap, and things to bring out of their hiding spots and put together from “Santa.” I’m also going to brown up some sausage, to get ready for a breakfast casserole for tomorrow morning before church. So yeah, we’ve got lots to do still tonight!