Christmas Eve at the McDonalds

We just LOVE Alyssa's in-laws. 

 This year they invited us over for Christmas Eve. 

It was so thoughtful of them to let us come hang out with their
 family and take part in their Christmas traditions. 

We started the evening with a DELICIOUS prime rib dinner.

Then we played a fun game of,

Pin the Nut on the Nutcracker:).

This game had everyone laughing.

After the game, we all sat in the living room

 and listened to the Nephite Christmas story.

It is a beautiful storybook. I was unaware of the storybook before that night. 

I will definitely need to buy it to add to our collection of Christmas stories.

The kids all loved dressing up to take Christmas gifts to someone.
This is a McDonald family tradition every year.
I love that!

They also had the missionaries over for 

the evening's festivities.

One fun tradition that I was not able to

 get a picture of was the birthday cake.

We all got to frost a big cake and sing 

happy birthday to Jesus. 

Fear not, for behold...

Anna has tons of nativity costumes. It was a lot of fun to all go pick

 out a costume and act out the nativity,and sing Christmas songs. 

I am so thankful that we got to

spend the evening together.

This picture is the greatest!

Christmas is such a magical time of the year.

I am thankful for the blessing it is to have

 loved ones to share it with. 

I feel blessed that Anna and her family was willing to go to so much work 

and include our family for Christmas this year. 

I am so thankful for the birth of our Savior and the way

 that my life is blessed each and every day because of Him. 

I am thankful for Mary and Joseph. I pray I can do a better job

 living my life so that if I am needed to do something

for the Lord, 

I am prepared and ready.

One thing we talked about in my religion class was, 

could everyone have been told about the birth of the Savior that blessed night?  Why were only a few people told?  One idea was that they were all told, only the wise listened.

Our gift to the Savior can be as simple as that.  Choose to listen when the spirit speaks.  By doing so, we become instruments in the Lord's hands. 

Everyone was very excited when Santa arrived.

I think JD was the most excited. 

He has always been my BIGGEST kid at Christmas. 

He loves surprises.

Santa brought each one of us our own box of cereal.

As you can see by Ashlynn's box,

 Santa knows her pretty well.

I really love that idea. I may have to steal that fun tradition,

 along with a few others from the evening:).

It was a tremendous evening. 

We sure do LOVE the McDonald family!