The Zyriek Zoo: Christmas Eve

Looking back on the holidays I realize I took very few pictures....but at least we had a great time and have great memories!!

Christmas Eve was a nice day with lots of family time. The Zyrieks slept in and enjoyed some time at home that morning. We had Mom and Dan over for a late lunch. Gary and I prepared a nice lunch that was very good. The girls enjoyed some time with my parents and then we went to Hope for the 3:00 pm Christmas Eve service. Of course this was supposed to be one of the smallest services during the 6 services offered between Friday and Saturday nights, but ended up being the largest with close to 5,000 in attendance!! Caroline was old enough to join the service this year and did a great job. She said afterwards that her favorite part was the singing with the candles at the end and that she liked our "class". Anna and Caroline both enjoyed singing the carols and being part of such a nice service.

After church we went over to Dad's house and helped get dinner ready there while they were attending their Christmas Eve service at Emmanuel Methodist. When they all got home we had a nice pork tenderloin dinner. This year we had Jennifer and Matt with their 3 kids, Blair & Kim and their 2 kids and Lizzie all in town and at the table. We were also joined by Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Blair and our cousin Chip. Nice crowd indeed. Jennifer and I had worked on getting the tables all arranged and set the day before which helped lower the stress levels of trying to seat 17 or 18 people including many kids. The kids loved playing with their cousins and about 8:00 we went home to get ready for Santa.

The girls wrote notes to Santa and to Elfley, our Elf and left milk, cookies and cheerios for the Elf. They put out the reindeer food and Gary read us Twas the Night Before Christmas. We read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and then tucked them into bed. Surprisingly, they went to sleep pretty quickly. Gary and I watched Christmas Vacation to ensure they went to sleep and then we were off to bed ourselves waiting for Santa to come. Hope we have been good enough!! : )