Christmas Eve

One great thing about living close to my parents is that they know Santa. Yes, the real one. We don't have to bother with the long lines and horrible mall Santas, the big man just comes right over and takes pictures with our kids in the comfort of the grandparents' house.

We had a lot of fun with Santa and I'm sure he enjoyed all of the different shots we forced him to take. He was wonderful.

After he left, we carried on our annual tradition of Christmas Eve nachos. I asked my mom where this all started and she told us that one Christmas Eve she was frantically finishing up last minute stuff when my older sister MaryRuth came home from her job at the Mexican restaurant where we all worked as teenagers. She offered to fix dinner and felt inspired to do nachos. The End. That's the entire reason that we have had nachos every Christmas Eve for the past 15 years.
After a lovely afternoon we went home, had a nap, and then carried on the Nelson family tradition of shrimp. Andy said it was some of the best shrimp he's ever had. I'm not so much a seafood gal, so I just take his word for it.

Once dinner was finished we drove to the Festival of Lights, a golf course set up with animated Christmas lights. It's in a small town next to ours, and the line to get in was about a mile long, but it was a lot of fun. Calvin was enchanted, and it was cozy to sit in our own car listening to Christmas music and driving through looking at the different lights.