The Eve of Christmas

I am still trying to catch up, so bear with me - it's for posterity sake!

In the last few years that we have stayed home (in Chi-town, not Utah) for Christmas we have tried to keep with the Goates' tradition and host Christamas Eve dinner at our house with some families who don't have family close by. Well this year we decided that our little clan of orphans has expanded to the point where we don't fit in our house anymore. I know a guy who can coordinate things at our church building and it worked out that we were able to have it there.

We had a book exchange for the kids...

And a white-elephant gift exchange with the adults. As usual, things got interesting with the white-elephant gifts, lets just say everyone was quite jealous of the the toilet seat that has taken residence in my basement. (at least it was still in the package :o)

We have such great, fun friends and we feel so blessed for this family away from family.

Another favorite Christmas Eve tradition is the Goates' T-shirt! Every year Mom & Dad Goates have a T-shirt made for all of the family. We were excited to see the old-school "Genuine Goates' Kid" t-shirts and on the back is the 53 names of our Goates' family on the back (fyi- in the less than two months since Christmas that # has grown to 55, and #'s 56 & 57 due in the next few months - talk about exponential growth!).

So after the t-shirts we put out milk and cookies for Santa and Jenna counted carrots for the reindeer - then it was off to bed.