Christmas Eve

After dinner, we took a walk around our neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. I was disappointed in the lack of light displays, but we still enjoyed our walk. Because of the cloudy and rainy weather, the airplanes flying into and out of Oakland Airport were "going the wrong way". They usually take off heading north, but in bad weather they take off south and land from the north. The sound is different and when they are landing, they are over our house much lower to the ground. This allows Alex to see them better and he really liked watching them fly by. Even though it was cloudy, the rains held off for our walk. Once we got back home, there was time for one gift before bed. My mom's tradition was (is?) to have us open a gift on Christmas Eve that was jammies. I found cute matching jammies for the boys and decided to borrow this tradition (for this year at least). Zachary and Alex both enjoyed opening up their present and looked super cute in their jammies!

Because of Alex's present opening talent, we didn't put the presents under the tree as they arrived, but kept them in the pack and play and out of harm's way. So, after the boys were in bed, Phil and I put out the presents and cleaned up so we would be ready to go first thing in the morning. Here's a picture of our tree and of our stockings. I didn't quite get Zachary's stocking completed for this year, but I took the partially completed face and lazily basted it together so that Santa could leave presents. There had been a blank spot on the fireplace (yes, it is hidden by a bookcase) waiting for it, and I was so happy when I hung it up, even if it isn't perfect yet.