Christmas Eve

We woke up to a snow/ice filled morning. It rained early that night, then snowed, then rained again, and then froze. Lena and Daddy are pictured above clearing the snow/ice mixture off the driveway. Not a fun 90 minutes, though playing with Lena in the snow is a lot of fun.

Later that afternoon we drove around and dropped off some cookies for some friends. Lena was very upset the one time Dad delivered cookies with out her.

Then we returned home to a dinner of pizza and bread sticks. Yummy. Lena loves pizza.

Not sure what baby food concoction is all over Clare's face, but she's definitely having a good time.

A tradition in Kathleen's family is to open one gift on Christmas Eve, and that gift is always a new pair of pajamas. We have adopted that in our little Mangum family. Lena and Clare got matching polka dot PJs, Adam got some Dr. Pepper PJs, and Kathleen got man PJs because she's always stealing Adam's and girl's PJs don't have pockets.

For the first time ever, our little family reenacted the Christmas story from the Bible, mainly Luke 2. Above is the angel (Lena) coming to proclaim good tidings to a shepherd (Dad). Dad is wearing an authentic Middle Eastern garb that Kathleen bought 9+ years ago in Israel.

Two of the wise men (Lena and Dad) approach the baby Jesus with a gift.

Mary (Mom) and baby Jesus (Clare) accept visitors. By Clare's expression, apparently baby Jesus was very frightened by the wise men.

Finally we got ready for bed and left out some cookies and orange juice for Santa, and some carrots for the reindeer. Why OJ and not milk? Well, Dad suggested milk, but Lena was adamant that Santa preferred OJ, which is Lena's favorite drink. So OJ it was. And as it turns out, Santa does really enjoy a nice glass of orange juice.