I can’t believe that Christmas in in 4 days! 4 days!!!!!! This year we are getting to do Santa with our grandkids. Our plans weren’t set until less than a week ago, so there was a bit of scrambling, but I am beyond excited because our younger kids have not “done” santa in a few years.  It’s going to be fun to have “believers” in the house.

In case you didn’t know, we have a 30 year old daughter with 2 kids ages 3 and 4. A 26 year old daughter who can’t be here this year and our 11 year old son and 12 year old daughter.

The 2  youngest are pretty excited about getting to play santa this year, so we decided to put together a Christmas eve bag. They will be getting in around 8, so I didn’t include a Christmas movie. We have most of them anyway and I do want them to fall asleep at a semi reasonable hour.

The grand kids have never gotten to do the whole Christmas eve experience, which I LOVE doing. It doesn’t have to cost a lot. You can add what you want. We’ve always done new pajamas to put on Christmas eve.

These are for the boys, ages 4 and 11. I realize that they aren’t Christmas, but I looked all over our town and could not find any cute Christmas ones in 5T. No sweat, a yeti lives in the cold and it’s cold at Christmas (mostly). I also realize how cheesy Yeti 2 Party is, but they boys will be ready to party on Christmas day. Y’all, I can justify anything. Plus they match and the bottoms are so soft! Walmart special and I  didn’t think $9.oo/pair wasn’t too bad and by the time I found a 5t, I probably would have paid 900. As I’m typing this I realized I never looked at Target where now, in my mind, there are racks and racks of super cute 5T Christmas pj’s. Sigh

These are for our 3 year old granddaughter and 12 year old daughter. I did find Christmas ones in 3T, but couldn’t get her the ONLY Christmas ones out of all the kids, so Elsa it is. Good thing she LOVES Frozen. My 12 year old is in adult sizes and I’d already picked some up for her. I was super thrilled to see how well they matched. The Elsa ones are from Walmart and the other ones are from Family Dollar. They were $10 and are incredibly soft. If you’ve never shopped at Family Dollar, don’t turn up your noses. They actually have cute stuff for the whole house at really good prices.

You can’t have a Christmas eve box/bag without hot chocolate. This came from Heartisans Marketplace in downtown Longview, TX. It’s a wonderful little store, run by volunteers, that help women learn work skills to get back into the work force. Every bit of money goes back into the store and into helping the women. It wasn’t frugal at about $12, but sometimes it’s more than about saving money, ya know.

My husband and I had been on the lookout for some cute kid friendly hot chocolate mugs. It seemed like we looked everywhere. I knew exactly what I had in mind, but the ones I found were all about $12.99 and I just couldn’t pay that for Christmas mugs. We found these at Dollar General for a buck a piece. The travel mugs will be perfect for the littles, non-breakable and have a top. Perfect. I just love the Santa ones, but as I look at the picture do the cheeks look like boobs???????? OMG, they do and now I can’t unsee it! I will NOT mention it to the kids. Oh, well, it is what it is.

I added 2 books. The traditional Night Before Christmas, picked up at Books a Million and Baby Jesus. I cannot for the life of me remember where I bought this one. It tell the story of Jesus’s birth. I STILL use the Little People nativity scene that we’ve had for about 10 years, so I think I’ll let them act out the story with it. Except there is one small problem….

Can you find the problem? We don’t have the shepherd. I think he was accidentally put in the Little People farm that we donated ages ago. I think the cow took his place because I don’t think it originally came with a cow. I think Joseph may have to do double duty and fill in for our missing shepherd. That could work, right?

Last, but not least, we have the gingerbread house kit. Shout out to the cashier at Dollar General for letting us know that Walmart had them for $4, even though they were still marked $9. I think all the kids will enjoy assembling this. I was going to add more candy, but I think what it comes with will work and the less candy, the quicker we can get it done.

So, that’s our Christmas Eve bag. Just enough to get the kiddos really excited for the big day. What do you put in your Christmas eve box? I’d love suggestions for next year.

Merry Christmas,

Stacy