Christmas Eve

Well, it's finally here! Christmas Eve has arrived and it is a nasty rainy day. It hasn't brought down the mood of the children in the Ebbert household, though. Emily already got busy today making Santa a special card to go along with the special "chain" she made him for his Christmas tree. The card is so adorably cute. On the front she wrote:

to: Santa
from: EmiLy
age 7

The inside of the card reads:

merry
christmas!
Love, EmiLy

Dear Santa, I hope you Like my chain. It is for your Christmas tree. I Drew a pictcher for you. and now I am makeing you this card.

I typed it out exactly how she punctuated it and capitalized it. It is just so sweet. I hope Santa has a good place to store it for safe keeping. It really is a very long chain that she worked on for a very long time. :) Ethan also made something special for the jolly ol' man. He worked hard on two very special pictures. One is of a Christmas tree and one is of a Santa Claus. We started a tradition a few years ago that they leave out "gifts" for Santa each year by making pictures and things for him. They think it is so neat that the things they leave out for him are gone when they wake up on Christmas morning.

This afternoon will be spent by having our annual Christmas Eve party at our house with all of our family here. Well, at least all of our family that is in town. We will certainly be missing those that can't be here. After the party, we will head to church for the candlelight service. Ethan and Emily are so excited that the final advent candle will be lit tonight. They were asking me about it yesterday. Once that is over then we will come home and enjoy a nice evening together and maybe watch a Christmas movie until it is time to sprinkle the reindeer food out on the lawn and put out the cookies and milk for Santa and then the carrots for the reindeer.

Just a few minutes ago we went to the NORAD Santa tracker to see where he has already been and it was exciting for the kids to watch the Santa cam and watch the little clips. We talked about how as the day goes by, Santa will make his way closer to us. Suddenly Ethan leaned over to me to whisper something in my ear. He said, "What about the Jewish people?" He was looking at the world map and was pointing in the general direction of where Israel is and asked again about the Jewish people who don't celebrate Christmas. I just looked at him and gave him a little smile. Ethan is always just so sensitive and thinking of others. I explained that there are Jewish people all over just like there are Christians all over and other religions, too. I said that Santa knows who celebrates Christmas and who doesn't. I told him not to worry. Santa isn't going to go to somebody's house that doesn't celebrate Christmas. He just smiled and let out a sigh of relief and we went back to our Santa tracking.

Emily had a headache last night, but she is better today. I just hope that today and tomorrow are pain free days for her. She deserves to just be able to be a normal child full of wonder and joy at Christmas!