On the 11th Day of Christmas...

Day 11: The Nativity & Christmas Eve

Today I'm going to cover two similar traditions.... I'm running out of days and there is still so much I want to document.

One of the traditions relating to the Nativity is having Nativity scenes around the house for decoration during the holiday season. My mom has loads of different Nativities, as does Brig's mom. Coming from two homes like that it is easy to understand why we love them too.

We have around 7 Nativities, but only 5 up in our house right now. When you have a little child in the house you have to be careful where you put the decorations.

We received this Nativity from Brig's parents the first year we were married. It's simple and cute and definitely gets the message across that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season."

We acquired this Nativity set from Nicole and Tal last year. It is supposed to hang on the tree, but since the tree hasn't been put up yet... it is still residing in it's box.

This Nativity was my mother's, but she let Nicole and I got through some of her older decorations. This little Nativity isn't displayed this year because I simply cannot find a place for it out of our little one year old's reach.

This is the Nativity that Nicole and Talon gave us last year as part of the "theme" present.

This Nativity was given to us by Brig's sister Shannon. She went to Africa a couple years back and found this. It is made out of banana fibers.

This is another Nativity that I got from my mother when we were going through her stash.

Last year Brig's parents had us in their family rotation and since Cheryl loves Nativities she gave us this amazing one. A friend of theirs cuts these out and then we were able to decorate them. To be completely honest though, Brig did all the work. I painted the base layer and he did the detail work.

He didn't realize till after that he had painted the wrong side of the cow...

Here's a front shot.

The other tradition relating to the Nativity happens on Christmas Eve. Like most, we act out the Nativity during our Christmas Eve program. For several years I was always the donkey. Don't know why. I just liked being the donkey.

Last year I gave up my position to my brother Chase. He fulfilled his duty very well as the donkey.

And we had some very good shepherds who were "sore afraid."

And the heavenly hosts that were singing Alleluia.

The Wise Men made an appearance as well.

And Andy was baby Jesus. I can't believe how small he was. Time sure flies.

In previous years we've had all sorts of variety in our Christmas Eve program. With the Moore family we used sweet stick figures to tell the story.

And we've had singing Wise Men too.

I'm not sure what this year will bring, but I hope it'll be just as memorable as previous years.

Along with the tradition of acting out the Nativity we usually try to leave some cookies and milk for Santa. Melanie made sure we did last year.

And there is always lots of music throughout the night.

Another thing we do on Christmas Eve is have all the kids sleep in the same room. Last year we disappointed my little sis because Brig and I didn't sleep with everyone... and neither did Nicole and Tal. However, Mel did make sure to wake everyone up nice and early and get good pictures of Chase and Dustin in the process.