Christmas Eve with the Tucker's

John and his boxer buddie, Maggie waiting for the Christmas Eve festivities to begin
Every year, the kids make and toss out Magic Reindeer Food. They love it and think it's so fun! Here is the famous mixture, that Jackson got from his 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Noll. And, below, is a picture of him spreading it for Santa's Reindeer!

Before we got started doing our fun Night Before Christmas stuff, I was busy preparing the next morning's breakfast. It's a great breakfast casserole of a recipe I got from a friend right after John & I got married. It's easy, yummy and a great make-the-night-before kind of thing. (BTW, it went over GREAT the next morning!)


One of our family traditions is to have the kids open a gift on Christmas Eve. It's almost always matching jammies. The boys always look so cute, and I think they love that they match, believe it or not! FUN!



Here are our 3 handsome little fellows after donning their jammers! This year, we began a new tradition. As the kids get older, we have decided to let them open another gift too. This year it was board games, and they got to pick which one they wanted to play! We all 5 really LOVE playing all types of games! So, they got to pick which one (or all) that they wanted to play, and then we spent a quiet evening playing games as a family. I especially enjoyed the quiet evening together just the 5 of us. (Well, as quiet as it could be playing this game! LOL!) The boys got Yahtzee Turbo, Uno Flash, and our great Arizona friends, Chris & Mary and their boys got us Phase 10 Twist. We all voted, and decided upon Uno Flash. I was surprised John voted for that, because he really isn't fond of regular Uno, and doesn't ever want to play it. I have to say that this game was really easy to play for all of us. Daniel needed a bit of help, but I think that was just initially because it can be a game that you can "amp" up and make it more of a challenge with a 4 second or 6 second timer. After we realized that it frustrated him to use the 6 second timer, we opted to use the "no timer" option with the game. He liked it better that way, and we could all play! Even John said he liked this version and wanted to play it again and again! FUN!

Why do they keep using the timer?

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend our Christmas Eve--TOGETHER. My very favorite place well to be. The excitement of Santa's arrival, and games, and treats, was a lot, but a good time was had by all!