You better not pout...

Since we stayed at Daddy Steve and Namaw's house past bedtime, we had to rush our normal Christmas Eve traditions at home so the boys could get to bed....and that didn't make Barrett happy!  It did, however, produce one of my favorite pictures this Christmas!  There's no way you can look at the picture above and not laugh at the enormous difference in expressions on our boys' faces!!!
I didn't exactly have time to bake cookies before bed, so we just let the boys pick a few treats from the gift boxes we've received from friends to leave as a treat for Santa Claus (a gingerbread man and some roasted pecans). 

Both boys were giddy with excitement about Christmas Eve.

They told us, "We don't want to share a room tonight.  We need to sleep in separate rooms because last year we stayed up waaaay to late talking in the same room and Santa had to pass over our house and come back later after we went to sleep!"  lol!  Not sure where they got that from...but it was nice that they went right to sleep!

I think I've talked before about our struggle with Santa.  This article (Santa, Strategically) by Jen Wilkin gave us some new direction this year.  I highly recommend reading it if you struggle with the "How can we do Santa yet still keep the focus on Christ?" dilemma.