Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we have a few traditions.  One of those traditions is to eat tamales for dinner.  This is a tradition that comes from Rachel's Arizona-based family (we definitely did NOT eat tamales in New York).  Still, they are very yummy.  This year we invited some friends over to enjoy the traditional Christmas Eve dinner with us.  Here we have some very happy kids:



Now here is a photo of the dinner buffet:



It makes me hungry just looking at the photo.

Henry is a little picky, so he just gets a quesadilla.



Our kitty Puma is also very into the Christmas presents this year.  From this photo we can see that he is enjoying the presents the best any kitty can.



I was also very excited for Christmas Eve because Rachel convinced me to upgrade my smartphone.  I've had an LG Ally for just over a year and it turned out that I was eligible for an upgrade.  Now I thought the Ally was a pretty good phone but I was having problems with it while on travel, namely problems with the phone OS "freezing" especially after turning it on after a plane flight.  Anyways, Emma and I went down to the Verizon store and I walked out with a new Droid Bionic.  It is a way awesome phone!  What a huge improvement this is over my old Ally!  It also has a front-facing camera so I can now Skype with the family anywhere and whenever.

Another tradition of Christmas Eve is viewing the Christmas lights in town.  After dinner we promptly drove to a neighborhood known as "Candy Cane Lane".  It is a short street that ends in a cul-de-sac  that is very much decked-out in Christmas lights at every house including lights strung between the houses over the street.  Very cool!

Back at the house, the kids put out milk and cookies for Santa, sprinkled some glitter on the driveway for the reindeer to better find our house, and we settled into the living room for the Christmas story.