Christmas Eve

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

We have Christmas Eve and Christmas with Z's family every year. We have since we were engaged. We have a wonderful feast of a dinner, act out the nativity, and sing Christmas carols until we're hoarse. Usually we go up to their home in Banks (about 40 minute drive from our house), but this year, it was decided that we'd go to their home on the coast to celebrate. This was a great idea it turned out because the Banks home had at least four feet of snow to contend with.

Our original plans, this Christmas, were to leave for Lincoln City (on the Oregon coast) on the 23rd, but our world has been so snow covered, that we questioned getting there at all.

After much research, we decided, rather last minute on Christmas eve, that we'd brave the elements and head toward the beach. Yeah for a Suburban, chains and the weight of eight bodies. We experienced snow up through McMinnville. The only risky part of this venture, or so we thought, was going to be getting over the coast range. It ended up being no problem at all. Many of those roads had been closed during the days before because of downed trees. As we headed into the mountains all there was was rain. We were in great shape.

In the past few years, our ward has helped serve dinner at local hospitals on Christmas. Z invited his parents to join in on the fun last year. Z's mom was so enamored with this idea that she decided to bring it to the Lincoln City area.

The hospital here in Lincoln City is really small. One of the E.R. doctors used to be in the bishopric, so Z's mom had an in. She got it all organized.

When we arrived in town late in the afternoon of the 24th, I dropped Z and four of the six kids at the hospital to help. Even A, who is almost six, begged to go and help serve. I was so pleased with his decision.

Two of the boys and I left them, stopped at the grocery store and went to Z's parents house to unpack the car. We went back to get them at 7pm. They served 128 people and ran out of food. Everyone had a great time. Could become a new Hess family Christmas eve tradition, we'll see.