Christmas Eve and The Midnight Feast

Well Christmas Eve is always a very busy time in our home. There seems to be so much to  organise with the getting ready for Christmas Day, and going to Mass at Midnight and one of the favourite traditions for the Children is the Feast we have when we come home from Mass!

We like to prepare the meat and cut up the vegetables in readiness for our Christmas Lunch on Christmas Eve to allow more time for actual celebrations on this day.
One of the advantages of having a larger family is that the chance to spend time opening presents and enjoying the excitement of the day goes for longer.....well it does in our home.

This means though to get a meal ready (at a reasonable hour), we try for a Christmas Lunch but frankly, we usually eat around 3-4pm in the afternoon. This actually means dinner time is a pick and choose affair requiring little preparation or clean up! Love it!!

The children had been secretly placing the gifts they had made for each other under the tree, trying to ensure no one knew who the presents were for. Some even wrote in code on the tags to confuse others who are likely to poke and prod. I forgot to get a photo when everyone had done the secret  placing of presents but forgot in the excitement of the day.

This year we had Bernadette come over in the afternoon and she brought some lovely Christmas gifts for the children to enjoy.  We also just had a bit of a break before starting to work on the last minute getting ready items. Thank you Bernadette and Gary!

Rogan was keen all day to put the Gingerbread House together. In fact I don't think that a 1/2 hour passed all day with out him nagging me to start doing this.
These were the weapons of choice to decorate the Gingerbread house.

I did have big plans to help the younger ones make very elaborate Gingerbread Men, complete with gumdrop buttons (aka Shrek) for their siblings but by the time Christmas Eve rolled around I just couldn't face doing anymore cooking.
So we got paper bags like we use for Birthday bags and filled them with some marshmallows chocolate drops and  gingerbread cookies. Moran and Myffy decorated the outsides and we tied them up with sparkly pipe cleaners.

As Kynan only came home the day before from interstate, his contribution was to sleep in the afternoon, to conserve his strength obviously!

We sent the children outside to try to burn of some of the excess energy. Therefore hoping they would go to sleep early before Mass, so we could wake them up in time and not have them so sleepy to miss this special event.

Corbyn was very excited all day. Here he is making a C for Corbyn and for Christ and Christmas.

We put our Gingerbread house together with Melted White chocolate. Our gingerbread was a little wobbly on some sides (not cooked long enough for free standing). It was really  a team effort to get it to keep standing for a while and we had a few "home repairs" to make in patching up the walls so they stayed together.

Did I mention that Rogan kept nagging asking me all day 'can we decorate the Gingerbread house now?' Finally after we got the smaller children in bed Autumn and Rogan finalised the decorating. I think they ate a few of the decorations too.....well I know I did!

Here are the foods layed out for the Feast:
Shortbread, Home made Eggnog, peaches, apricots, strawberries, grapes, cherries, coffee balls, wafer sticks, fudge balls, gingerbread cookies, sugar cookies, speculas and lebukens. Amongst this is our Christ candle in the middle as well.

Up this end of the table we have Christmas Fruit cake, nectarines, plums cherries (a different variety) and yo-yo cookies and custard creams as well as the completed Gingerbread House.

Another view of the Feast table!

Trying to get a good family photo after Mass and before the Feast is difficult. Sleepy and excited children does not go well with a photo shoot I have decided.
However it is traditional for us to get a family photo both at Christmas and Easter.

The children demolishing the Ginger bread house, mainly picking the lollies of it at this stage......about 2:30 am.

The last thing we do is put the Christmas bags out in the Lounge room ready for Daddy and Mummy to fill up with the presents.
We only put the made presents to each other under the tree. The presents we give the children and each other go into the bags I have made for them.

We wait for the children to go off to sleep before putting presents out. this year I saved time for us by pre packaging each persons presents into large garbage bags that then had only to be transferred into the Christmas Bags.
I don't know why I have never thought of this before.....I was quite impressed with my brainwave and wondered why no one had ever suggested it to me.

After this we went off to bed hoping the children would sleep in and with strict instructions NOT  to wake us (Mummy and Daddy) before 9am.

Christmas Eve is always a magical time in our home and truly the children look upon it as the most wonderful part of Christmas.

Thank you for sharing our joy as we open our hearts and home to you.

Blessings to you and your homes,