Today was fun.

We woke up late and did some tidying up and a little laundry. Then Scott took the kids out skating this afternoon. When they got back, Samantha went over to her friend's house to play for a couple of hours. I wrapped the rest of the Christmas gifts and the boys put them under the tree. Nice to have that all done three days before Christmas.

After supper we had Family Home Evening. Samantha taught a great Christmas lesson. She had planned it all herself, and written it out on paper, including what questions she was going to ask, such as, "What is the real reason we celebrate Christmas, Jesse?" I loved the end when she shared her testimony of what Christmas means to her.

For our closing song, each of the kids played their Christmas songs from the recital and we all sang along.

Then we had our activity, which was decorating a gingerbread house together.

We chose some Christmas stories to read at bedtime in the boys room and Jesse fell asleep during the second book. My favourite was the book called, "The Christmas Miracle of Johnathon Toomey". I think this is the first time I've read it without crying.

I managed to get an hour or so of tidying down in the den tonight and some other stuff done on the computer, as Clara went to bed around 9:45 PM. That was wonderful, but now that it's past midnight so I better get to bed myself.