Christmas Eve

Christmas this year was everything that it should be; joyful, jolly, topped with holly, twinkling, bright, covered in white. We flip flopped back and forth between families which is both the blessing and curse of having grown up within 1/2 mile of one another.
We kicked off our Christmas Eve festivities with dinner at uncle Stu's. They are always so generous to open their doors to our small {albeit growing} family on Christmas. We loved catching up with cousins who live both near and far.We arrived at mom's just in time for Christmas Eve fondue and hot almond punch, both of which I can't do without on Christmas. My mom's tree this year was gorgeous to say the least. She planted the Baby Blue Spruce about 4 years ago and this year it was the perfect tree to trim.The rest of the night consisted of reciting my Grandpa Richman's abridged version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, listening to the kids deliver Christmas poems and belt Christmas songs they learned in school, reading from Luke II, Mannheim Steamroller's Silent Night, and warming by the fire.Oh...and there was that one minor incident where before we were warming by the fire we were smoked out of the house. Someone, and it might have been me, lit the fire without making sure the flue was open and let's just say that we are lucky the fire department didn't show up for fondue and hot almond punch. I like to refer to it as my little personal Christmas Miracle. BD drew the short straw {meaning he lacked the necessary offspring to keep him safely on the ground} and climbed up the icy roof to remove 8 inches of snow from the frozen shut chimney top. At the very least the kids were reassured that Santa could now get down the chimney knowing that the smoke could now get out.