The Daily Hailey

Last night, we loaded everyone up in our bus for the Christmas Eve service. Its usually looks VERY different than it looked this year, but the amount of effort that went into it was unbelievable. Volunteer after volunteer received our vehicle, gave us some battery operated candles and some glow sticks, and directed us to a parking spot, pointed at a large screen on the front of the church. We turned off our headlights off and tuned our radios to a particular station. Light Christmas music played while we waited.

The service was introduced, and prerecorded music played, with words underneath so we could sing along. A message was given too. Short and meaningful. It was pretty perfect. Then we all lit our lights and sang a carol or two together. It wasn’t the same as every other year, but nothing has been this year 🙂 It was fun and refreshing. Aaaaand we could all go in our jammies, hahaha!

It all wrapped up around 7:00, and another volunteer directed traffic out of the parking lot. It was a really nice outing, and good to still get to church, however unconventional.

Kids went to bed. Cards were played. Popcorn was eaten. Food for the next day was prepped. Gifts were brought down to the tree. And then, beds were slept in, because EXHAUSTION!

The morning has been lovely. We made a yummy brunch of hashbrowns, bacon, and strawberries 🙂 Everyone ate their body weight, and then we cracked out the Christmas story. Everyone sat and listened, and we discussed it afterwards. But present time came and it got a little crazy. We do gifts pretty modestly, but five kids getting just a few small things still results in a LARGE haul!!

I’ll tell you all about it another day 😉 But its been so much fun and so busy that we almost forgot to put the turkey in!! 😳

We’re all caught up now. No one is worried. There is no big deadline. No big expectations. Just being together with our people 💜while deeply missing some of our other people 💔

Merry Christmas, my friends. 🎄