An early Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve! It might actually be my most favorite day of the year. I love all the anticipation and excitement that reaches its climax the day before Christmas. I love all the last minute preparations as people hustle about, listening to carols, and making sure that everything is "perfect". As fun and exciting as all that is, its not why I love Christmas Eve. I love the traditions of my family associated with that night. My great-grandparents were born in the Ukraine, and although they died even before my Dad was born, we have always continued their traditional Ukranian dinner. Before the table it set, hay is laid on the table to symbolize the manager. Then a white tablecloth (white = pure) is placed over the hay (being as I only have one white tablecloth and its techincally cream,and my children are still young, I substituted with a Christmas tablecloth this year). The dinner is eaten by candlelight and everyone must speak in soft hushed tones. This part proves a little difficult with young children, but hopefully they'll eventually catch on. There are supposed to be twelve courses (for the 12 apostles), but we've simplified the meal with time. The first course is split pea soup which everyone must eat, then we move on to Pierogies, Halupki, Fish, Greenbeans, Bread, and Christmas punch. We finish with nut and poppyseed rolls.

I don't believe I ever missed this meal in the previous 29 years of my life. Even when I was living is Rexburg and I had Katy on the 23rd of December. I still had the meal. Its funny the crazy things we do when we have our first children. Katy was born at 5:30 pm on the 23rd. I was released from the hospital 24 hrs later, and came home and prepared the meal with the help of my sister-in-law, Rachael. Jared and his mom had gone to fill my pain med prescriptions which I can say I REALLY needed after being so dumb!! I had prepared some of the food in advance but still I can't believe I did that. Now I would kick and scream if they tried to release me a minute earlier than the maximum time my insurance will cover. And even if they succeeded in dragging me home, I would not be preparing a meal for anyone, especially nothing more than Peanutbutter and jelly sandwich. After all her hard work, I don't think Rachael tried anything but the punch. As I side note, being a new mom, I didn't stop to consider the side effects of eating cabbage when nursing a day old baby. I can still see Jared's face incredulous with disbelief out of the sounds leaving his newborn daughter's body that night. I really won the smartest mom of the year award that year. Back to the main point, we are going to spend Christmas Eve with Jared's family this year. I am very excited that we are finally going, its loooong overdue. But, part of me was sad to be missing this special meal. So, we had Christmas Eve early. Sunday after church, while Jared was hometeaching, the girls helped me prepare the meal and table. After the meal, we continued with more family traditions. We read the nativity story out of the scriptures and acted out the parts. This also proves difficult with a shortage of males in the family, especially since Jacob isn't in to cooperating with acting yet. We had a female shepard, and Katy played the role of Joseph.

our little angel

Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus


After we had finished with the story of Christ's birth, we opened some presents. Growing up, we exchanged presents with our siblings on Christmas Eve. The kids exchanged presents with each other and opened gifts from my Aunt. I have always loved the idea of dressing up either for Christmas Eve meal or Christmas day meal, but the idea never caught on with my family. Since we had our little celebration after church, we were already dressed up and it made the whole experience seem even more special. Fun times!

Presents from Aunt Faye: