Christmas Eve

The day before Christmas Eve, here I am getting the food ready to have Jacob's family over for Christmas Eve dinner.

While I was working in the kitchen, Isaac was happy to sit in his high chair after having his breakfast.

This face looks like he's up to no good, doesn't it?!

That evening, we went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at First Baptist Church. Here is a shot of Jacob and Isaac as we're walking into the service. Isaac is wearing his Christmas outfit that came from Mme Bel in France. Mme Bel was my host mother when I studied in France, and she sent this velvet outfit for Isaac from Petit Bateau in France. so cute!


We took these next 3 pictures of Isaac in his outfit to send to Mme Bel...
now I just need to print and mail them!


My mom's family has strong roots in Texas, and my dad's family is Louisiana Cajun through-and-through, so our traditional Christmas meals weren't exactly "traditional."

We had tamales for Christmas Eve dinner and gumbo for Christmas Day lunch!

Since I didn't know if I could get real tamales in Jackson, I decided to just go "Tex-Mex" for the Christmas Eve dinner. We had chicken enchiladas, beef enchiladas, rice, beans, and cheese quesadillas.

Christian wrestling with Phoenix

Papa Jack got his Christmas gift on Christmas Eve; it was an heirloom edition of The Night Before Christmas, and we put the grandkids' handprints and ages in the inside cover. Here's Papa Jack reading the story to his three grandsons.

Notice the cute little red rockers in all of our holiday pictures? These red rockers are a Holmes tradition... Jacob and his brother and sister each had a red rocker, and Santa put their gifts in the rocker on Christmas morning. Jacob's parents got little red rockers for each of the grandkids, so the tradition lives on. We love them!

time to go to bed!

But it was his first Christmas Eve ever, and Isaac didn't want to go to bed!

We tried to explain to him that there was lots more fun to come! We had Christmas Day, then a trip to Texas on the 26th to do Christmas all over again with the Meyers side of the family!

kisses for Mommy

Christian wanted us to open our Christmas gift from him on Christmas Eve.

It was a picture frame that he'd made at school that had a picture of him in it!

It was a great Christmas Eve!