Christmas Eve

At 10 am Alex, Kianna and I head over to Family Vision Care to pick up Kianna's very first pair of glasses! She put them on and was so startled to be able to see she blurted out, "OH!!". The glasses are turquoise and blue colored with little characters dancing on them. The end of the arms are shaped like cars. Kianna chooses a case with cars pictured on them. The glasses are made by La Font, just like Mommy's. With the glasses and the page boy haircut Kianna looks like a mini-me from my college days. Then we headed to Haircut's today for a haircut for Alex and Kianna. This is same place we have come to on and off for years.Kianna had her first haircut here at 4 months of age.
For dinner we were invited to the Kwolzyk family's house. Matthew is in 5th grade with Alex at school, Elizabeth is 1 grade below Kianna, Angela is 4 years old (and is a favorite child of mine). Jonathon pulls up the rear at a charming 6 months of age. We have known Bruce and Allison for many years and have shared the sidelines for many a baseball and basketball game. After a eating we looked up the to-the-minute location of Santa. Our family headed to St Matthias for an 8 pm mass. At home kids fell asleep quickly and Daddy and I set to wrapping a number of presents that had yet to be wrapped.
A note of current family Christmas traditions:
Holiday cooking can include:

1. Baking and decorating sugar cookies or gingerbread cookies.
2. Making Chex mix. This is a tradition my Mom started. Many of my friends from younger years associated Christmas and homemade Chex mix with my Mom. The traditional  recipe from the cereal box or internet
3. Holiday candy.
1. ALWAYS: Christmas Bark- 1 pound melted white chocolate mixed with 1 cup pistachio nuts and 1 cup dried cranberries. This recipe is from my friend Tanya Burke, she has made it for years.
2. Chocolate covered ___________. Fill in the blank. Often pretzel rods, also various nuts.
3. Pine Bark. A new one to me this year. It includes saltines, toffee, chocolate and pecans.  VERY good and worth repeating.
4. Christmas morning, BG Mom's baked french toast with lots of bacon and Odwallla orange juice.
5. Lunch: my tortilla soup.
6. Kurt and I also enjoy eggnog at this time of year.

Other traditions-letter to Santa sent in the mail. Kianna prefers this more than Alex. On Chritmas Eve stockings are put out for everyone in the family for Santa to fill. Alex and Kianna each have a hand knitted bag in addition to their stockings as Santa often needs more room for their toys. Cookies and milk are left for Santa and carrots left for the reindeer. This year Kianna put out 16 carrots- 2 for each reindeer.


Note:
Kianna has been bitten by the holiday bug and loved decorating the tree and house and I am grateful to have a partner in this.