christmas eve day

Natalie, opening her gift from us.  Phil and Jacob are wearing one of their gifts from us.

Since New Zealand is currently 19 hours ahead of us here in California, we began our Christmas Eve Day with exchanging gifts with each other that morning, had a yummy lunch of turkey breast, roast spuds, green bean casserole and peas, along with turkey gravy and cranberry sauce, and we also Skyped with some family members - unfortunately we didn't think to take screenshots of these times, until our last Skype chat of the day.  We Skyped with Nige's Dad, sister and brother in-law (Keith, Wendy and Jason), friends from Havelock North, Denys and Elvira, my Mum, Chrissy, and then with my sister and her family - Phil, Natalie, Jacob, Jessie and Daniel.  We also Skyped the day before with Brent and Faye, and it was so lovely to catch up with them after not seeing them for a year.

Our niece, Jessie, opening her gifts. 

Daniel was already wearing an Old Navy t-shirt and then he opened his gift and found a new, 2014 Old Navy t-shirt.

My Mum also opened her gift from us while Skyping with us too.  Pete, my step-dad, was taking a snooze after a day of Christmas celebrations with family, so we missed him.  It was fun to do this with the family and share in the fun with them.  We had exchanged gifts with Nige's family before they left us in November.

After all the Skype calls, we headed off to church for the Christmas Eve service, which was a lovely way to end our day, and get ready for our US Christmas Day.  We are so thankful for this church body, their care for one another, and their love of the gospel and how important remembering every day of our lives all that Christ did for us in coming to this earth as a man, and then dying in our place, for the sins that we commit, on the cross so that we didn't have to.