We all went to church for Sunday services at 9AM on Christmas Eve Day. Lots great singing with the Christmas story between each song. We enjoyed the service tremendously. Then we did a quick stop-by at the house to switch to casual clothes before taking off to the nearest local Cracker Barrel Restaurant for brunch as Evan told us we were about to eat! Some had breakfast food, others had lunch food ... no matter which, it was all delicious! Then we had to shop around the country store where we found some great items and enjoyed looking at even more!
The house was decorated for Christmas in great tradition. We each had our own stocking hung on the new craft project by Shirley. The annual traditional gift envelopes had arrived from Florida from Aunt Pam and Uncle Fred with each precisely placed on their branch of the tree until Christmas morning opening. Several years ago, Ed's Mom Kay had given a Christmas Sleigh to the Facey Children and we were so pleased to see it prominently displayed in their new Utah home.
The house was decorated for Christmas in great tradition. We each had our own stocking hung on the new craft project by Shirley. The annual traditional gift envelopes had arrived from Florida from Aunt Pam and Uncle Fred with each precisely placed on their branch of the tree until Christmas morning opening. Several years ago, Ed's Mom Kay had given a Christmas Sleigh to the Facey Children and we were so pleased to see it prominently displayed in their new Utah home.
The afternoon activity was to bake up batches of sugar and gingerbread cookies for decorating in the evening by all of the kids. Mikayla really took the helm at getting the dough ready and using all of the cookie cutters to shape them all. The house smelled wonderful all afternoon with the scent of the cookies. Then it was decorating time by all six of the kids. No matter if you were six or seventeen, there were plenty of cookies and the imaginations were wide open. They all came out spectacular without too many being eaten as the decorating was happening!!!
As evening approached, the kids not ready for bed, were talked into turning in anyways and soon were out with fast sleep. Ruby wrote a note to Santa not only with her requests but also inquiring about Mrs. Claus and the Reindeer (she had left one at home in Lakewood telling him that she was in Utah for Christmas and not to miss her here!). Evan couldn't think of what to write, so Ruby helped him with his thoughts ... gift-wise, Evan needed no help!
All the family gift wrapped presents made their way under the Christmas tree and magically during the night, Santa brought his unwrapped gifts for all of the children with name tags of their photo faces attached. All the stockings were filled with goodies for all.
The first to awaken we heard the scampering feet of Ruby to her folks bedroom. She had woke Ella up to come with her ... at the ripe old time of 5:50 AM!!! Carrie sent them down stairs to get Evan, Ethan, Mikayla and Jordan. They came back disappointed saying that the kids would not wake up. Carrie announced "Let the big-gun step in ... I'll go down and get them up!". Not surprisingly, that's exactly what she did! And the morning was off to a great beginning. Let the games begin ....
Some of us stayed up with the kids while others took naps ... long, long naps I might add!!! Grandma went to work getting the geese into the oven for roasting, the ham cooking and the dressing ready to be baked. Aromas filled the Christmas home! At one o'clock we had our scheduled Skype with Kendall. It was great for all of us to be able to see her, see her movements and have actual live conversation happening. We were able to capture her on the TV screen and have a "family" picture including her!
When we finished, dinner was in it's final phase of cooking. Grandma's geese were done to perfection and Papaw set out carving them for the dinner table.
The Disney Christmas dishes are now part of Eric and Shirley's tradition to use thoughout their holiday season and their lifetimes. The table was set with these new dinnerware additions plus the new Thumper gravy boat, Chip & Dale salt and pepper, and Wise Owl sugar/condiment jar. The Facey Christmas Dinner Table is jolly-holly-festive!
Dinner was fabulous with all of the great effort from all who helped in all stages of preparation.
The Christmas of 2017 set new beginnings, new traditions and lots of family memories.
To see all of the captioned pictures in this blog, visit the photo album at this link. 
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