Christmas Eve & Why we don't do Santa

We open all our presents Christmas Eve. We've always done this. We don't do the whole Santa thing, so the kids know where the presents are coming from. They are under the tree for weeks before Christmas.

Why don't we do the Santa thing? For us it's simple. We want our children to know with 100 percent certainty that they can always count on us to tell them the truth. Period. Hey, it works for us. ;)

We started Christmas Eve at my Mother's house. I wish I'd taken more pictures! Here's Sophia opening her favorite gift, her talking Minnie Mouse. We call her Grammie Minnie. She has so many different Minnies, that we need to distinguish one from another. Since she's gotten this one, she takes it everywhere, and leaves the others behind. You can button, zip, snap, tie etc. We had a great time at Grammie's house, opening wonderful gifts and visiting with family, and eating yummy snacks! After we left Mom's, we went home and got ready to open all our presents.

Here is Sophia in front of the tree at home, asking, "Mama, can we please open presents now?"

We opened presents one at a time. Here is Sophia getting excited for Noah about his gift. "That's so cool Noah!" She's such an encourager!

Noah checks out his Transformer.

Sophia opens her Disneyworld snow globe. Every time we go to Disneyworld, we get each kiddo a special snow globe. Since we went in March, there were three snow globes under the tree this year!

Sophia helps Noah open his snow globe of the Incredibles.

Paige's is the wedding globe, with all the princesses and their men. The snow globe is so beautiful. It lights up, plays music and the couples spin around and dance. Those of you who know Paige, might be able to guess why she got this one...

Sophia was so excited to see she got her very own digital camera! I love the look on her face!

She loved it!

Paige is pretty tickled that she got a Jacoby Ellsbury (Red Sox) bobble head!

Sophia opens a present that is bigger than she is! (It's her Disney Princess Couch)

Diesel chews on his new chew toy, and had it in pieces in about five minutes. No, really.

Maggie is such a good girl, she just laid on the couch, relaxed and took it all in.

Here Paige opens her final present. She knew it was a book, from feeling through the paper.

Hmmm... a book about antique and collectible toys. Here she's flipping through the pages, trying to be thankful, and trying to figure out why we would get her such a book.

When she gets to page 103 she figures it out. Her new Ipod Touch is in the middle of the book! I took a craft knife and cut a rectangle just the size to fit her new Ipod, and hid it in the middle of the book! She was over the moon excited, because she didn't think she would be getting one this year. (That's Diesel beside her.)

Noah's favorite thing (next to the racing video game I didn't get a picture of) is this RC ATV.

Sophia now has a make up table just like Paige! It talks and lights up and is very cool. It is now sitting in their room, right beside Paige's make up table.

Sophia's new Disney Princess couch. She's almost too big for it! I had picked this up quite some time ago (on clearance), and had put it downstairs on a shelf. I had forgotten about it, and found it when getting out the Christmas decorations! We probably should have given it to her last year!

What a silly girl! It was the end of the night, and Daddy was lugging the couch upstairs to put in her room, and she wanted to go for a ride. I love the silly face!

There's that beautiful smile!

Paige gets a hug while Sophia checks out her new Ipod.

"So you touch it like this?"

Christmas Eve is over, now we have stockings to open in the morning, and then off to have lunch and more presents at DH's parents house (Nan & Papa's).