Ho Ho Ho!

For Lily's first Christmas Eve, we dressed her up in leggings for the occasion, in case she felt the urge to breakdance. Meanwhile, Kate, Chris, and I decorated a batch of cookies to distribute to our neighbors. I was so impressed by how much Kate has matured. She stayed focused on this project for well over an hour and had a great time. Sticky fingers are a pet peeve of Kate's. She had to take a break every couple of cookies to wash them. A few of Kate and Chris' creations. Kate believes you can't have too many m&m's or too much frosting.

Time for a silliness break.

Kate busted out some dance moves in honor of the cookies.

Afterwards, we got dressed up for Christmas Eve mass. While the rest of us got ready, Kate pretended Pop-Pop's calendar was a music hymnal and sang Christmas carols.

All dressed up and ready to go. Lily will punish me for that hat one day.

Kate had been asking Chris and me for weeks to go to church, we were finally granting her wish. She was excited to see her friends from school, sing some Christmas songs, and have a chocolate donut afterwards.

I'd love to say that Xmas Eve mass was an uplifing, inspiring, and joyful experience for us all, but it was pretty miserable. The place was jam-packed with screaming kids and tense parents, the air was choked with too much incense, and the priest basically phoned in his homily. An exhausted Kate (and Lily) sat through the entire mass, and in the end, there were no donuts to be had.

Still, Kate was thrilled it was the night before Christmas, and for the first time ever, hurried into her pajamas and dashed into bed. She thought she heard Santa's sleigh bells ringing downstairs and nearly exploded. "Oh my goodness, Mom! I think I heard Santa's bells! Goodnight! Check on me in ten minutes! Oh my goodness! Goodnight!"