Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in the Adams/Stephens/Smolinski household is quite the event!!! This year we had 31 people over for dinner, singing, and a nativity play! We had just enough kids this year, who were also the right ages, to have a Mary, Joseph, two shepherds, two angels, and of course, the baby Jesus!! Jayden was an angel and Eli was the baby Jesus!! Here are some shots from the night.

Jayden got all dressed up and we even did his hair! You almost couldn't recognize him. :)


Here's Eli (a.k.a. baby Jesus) with his Grandma Gayle

Here's Jayden as an angel. To the left of Jayden is Eleni, his only girl cousin, as the other angel. Holding her is Andrea, my crazy sister-in-law.

From left to right....one shepherd (Jack, my cousin's son), Mary (Kate, my cousin's daughter), another shepherd (everett, our nephew), and Joseph (owen, also our nephew).

As you can see, our Nativity play was complete with costumes, thanks to my mom and my aunt Ann!! Such amazing seamstresses!

About halfway through the singing and performances, Everett just knocked out on the sofa!

He slept through caroling, piano pieces, readings, and a group singing of the 12 Days of Christmas. About 10 years ago, my uncle Dave and I started the tradition of leading everyone is singing the 12 Days of Christmas, complete with hand motions for every "day". Here is everyone singing along. This always serves as the finale to our evening!

This is "5 Golden Rings" (note Everett to the left side of the picture)


All in all, Christmas Eve was a blast!!