Christmas Eve

We spent this day bumming around the house and preparing for our annual “open house” party where people drift in and out from around 4pm till about 9pm. And by “preparing” I mean we vacuumed, dusted and set up the space for food in the dining room.

In early afternoon, my husband and kids also placed the bags for our town annual Christmas Eve luminaries. Last year, we had paper bags, this year T decided to 3D-print them. They were sturdier but not as bright as the paper ones.

The open house Christmas eve party was a lot of fun. People came, stayed for a while, then left, then came back again. Some folks came early and stayed for the entire evening, others arrived later and only stayed for a little while. Some people stopped for a drink while they were on their way to a theater event or a family dinner.

Friends, friends of friends, neighbors, colleagues. It was a buffet style party where people just helped themselves to food and drinks. Relatively low-stress since we decided to order food from a catering place this year, instead of making it ourselves (prior years).

After cleaning up the party, T and the kids read “The Night Before Christmas” and went to bed around 8:30pm. Oh, they also opened one present on Christmas Eve: my daughter got a plush wale and my son got a Christmas Pusheen. Cookies were left for Santa which he, of course, ate.

Christmas

My daughter was up at 6:00 am and patiently went downstairs to wait for us to wake up. She is 8 so she has more self-control. When my son was up, who will be 6 in three weeks, that’s when we started opening the presents. T and I got each other very few things but the kids made out like bandits.

They each got some Legos kits, books, chemistry and potion kits, and games. My daughter loved Bananagrams, Smug Owl and My Family is So Weird games (thanks for the rec, Suzanne!) My husband and I are yet to play the Moose Master party game.

The rest of the day was spent eating leftovers and playing with their new toys. I took a nap and read some more of Sarah’s book.

The kids also took out ten toys (each) that they want to donate. A mandatory practice since we cannot just keep adding the toys. Their rooms could become impassable! And sometimes, they already are.

A friend came over for a very informal dinner, and we had leftover food from the party. Plus I packed her a few take away containers- we still have so many leftovers!

On December 26th, Boxing Day (although we don’t really use that term in the US), we cleaned up the house even more since there were loose scraps of wrapping paper, so we ran the vacuum. Went for a walk to rid ourselves from some cabin fever symptoms. Worked on a puzzle. Read a book. Napped. Watched a movie. Listened to some podcasts.

Made a blanket fort:

And that’s a wrap! Christmas 2025 is in the books. I feel content, with the type and the quantity of things. I did not bake anything (yet) and I’m not sure if I will. The kids haven’t asked to make cookies, and I haven’t reminded them.

As I finish this post, my daughter and I are in the sauna. The Korean sauna that I usually go to has a family day today.