Sweet Sixteen : Phase 2 : Christmas Eve!

Monday morning, my family went down to Brother Bill's, a place in East Dallas where my old church serves the community through many different ways. I taught VBS there for a week one summer several years ago. On Christmas Eve, they always have a toy-give-away for the neighborhood children and my family went to help. The lady who runs it has a family that goes way back with my family...her father and my grandpa were old Baylor friends and Dallas S.S. friends; she went to high school with my dad; her oldest son went to church with me in Dallas for a while; and her middle son was Beth's age at Baylor and they are still friends and he has kids Ryder & Beau's ages who are now friends. My family was in charge of the 0-2 year-old gifts. We had a whole room full of toys and books and stuffed animals and wrapped presents. Each child left with 4 gifts. It was so fun to see the excitement on their faces! My family really enjoyed the time serving together. Even Ryder helped in passing out toys to the children his own age!

Sunday night we all went to the Christmas Eve service at B&B's church. It was good. We sat on the 2nd row as B&B like to be up close and those were the only close seats left when we arrived! The good thing was that my old friend, Gary, was sitting right in front of us - he's a minister at B&B's church now, but he used to be a minister at my old church in Dallas. It was great to see him! Actually, my current pastor in NYC used to be on staff here in Dallas at the church where Gary's brother is the lead-pastor - small world!

After church, we went to B&B's house for leftover White Bean Chili along with salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden. Homemade soup or chili plus OG salad used to be an annual tradition, but it's been a while since we've done it! It was fun to revive an old tradition. B&B's family got dressed in their Christmas PJ's. Then, we went to see if the Easter Bunny's were outside of Crazy Liz's house...lots of people were there, but only one bunny.

I moved all my stuff to mom's house on Christmas Eve and will stay there for the rest of my time in Dallas. I had a late night wrapping my gifts for Christmas Day. I didn't want to try to travel with them wrapped and I left all my wrapping supplies in Dallas when I moved. I love to wrap and especially make the bows, so it was fun for me!

The boys in their Christmas Eve outfits





















































Christmas PJ's!

My gifts for my family....