The Night Before Christmas

Brandon Heath popped up on my radar December 2014, so I was excited to stumble on Brandon’s 2009 single, The Night Before Christmas.

December is hurrying by and here it is the day before Christmas. My next song choice is another pick from last week artist Blackmore’s Night Winter Carol album and one of it’s purrfect tracks, Christmas Eve.

Do you have special traditions for Christmas Eve?  A tradition we had with our once small children was to bake sugar cookies to leave for Santa at their grandparents’ home in West Virginia. We used various old-fashion Christmas cookie tin cutters usually sprinkling the tops sometimes with red and green sugar or occasionally, we’d ice them but there’s no beating just plain old fashioned granulated sugar topped cookies.   We also enjoyed making sugar cookies at our home other times during December.

The cookie baking tradition lives on. I don’t make them on Christmas eve but I manage to work in a batch of sugar cookies during the Christmas season. In recent years, sometime after 2010, I discovered Ann Clark cookie cutters, hand-crafted and American-made. Ann’s cookie cutters are bigger and heavier duty than the traditional, inexpensive ones that I own, so I’m totally sold on her products and will continue to buy tin cookie cutters from her as long as they are made in the USA.  

One of my favorite family traditions was always the reading of the scripture of the true story of Christmas on Christmas Eve from Luke.  Last year, we celebrated with our brand new granddaughter and Grandpoppy (aka DH) read the same passage that he read to the kiddos many Christmases ago. It was a blessed tender moment.  You can listen the biblical account here or watch below.

May Jesus’ love fill your hearts and homes this day and everyday throughout the year. Have a joyful Christmas eve, dear friends.