Christmas Eve

Kayden trying to figure out the Starwars voice changer helmet

Great Grandpa's "ho ho ho" beard

Gabriel & Kayden playing with the car ramp

He was so serious about his piano playing for everyone that sometimes he had to stand up to get it just right;-)

Kayden is such a lucky boy, he gets to celebrate Christmas 3 times! First we do our own family of 3 Christmas before we head off to NE because with flying it wouldn't work to bring our presents with us. Then on Christmas eve we celebrate with Kyle's family, Gma & Gpa Hingst, Great grandpa Dee, Great Grandma Eula, Aunt Heather, Uncle Chris, and his cousins Hattie and Gabriel. The day is started with Grandpa H driving to Scribner, NE to pick up Great Gma & Great Gpa and bringing them back to Milford......it's about 3-4 hours of driving to bring them to share Christmas with us (and that is just the getting them to us drive.....that night he has to drive them back to Scribner, another 3-4 hours of driving!!). While Grandpa Marty is driving I start the food cooking and prepare for everyone's arrival around noonish. Aunt Heather's clan is always late.......gotta laugh at this because it happens every year:-) Then we eat Christmas dinner, hang out and open presents. This year Kayden and Gabriel loved playing together. Gabriel is 6 and loves being the "big boy" and teaching Kayden the ropes. And Kayden loves following Gabriel around and trying to do everything he does. This year a favorite toy was Kyle's old Hot wheels track, both of them loved playing with it and even after getting all their Christmas presents they still wanted to play with the 28 year old race track!

A funny from this year's Christmas at the Hingst house was Great Grandpa Dee. He doesn't shave on election years, so he had a pretty long beared this year. Kayden thought he was santa. He would point at him and say "ho ho ho" everytime he was around him. Well this is cute but Kayden does NOT like Santa getting close to him. He loves to see him, and do his "ho ho ho" but he does not like Santa to hold him or touch him. So Great Grandpa was a little sad that he couldn't get close to our little monkey. At one point Kayden went around and gave everyone in the room a kiss and hug but he would not go close to GG. So Great grandpa (who is about 88 years old) got down on all fours and started crawling towards Kayden. I guess he thought if he was "down on his level" this would help him get close to Kayden. Instead it FREAKED Kayden out. He was HYSTERICAL. Screaming a scream I have never heard before and frantically trying to get in my lap. I was trying really hard to video Great Grandpa crawling on the ground (I mean how many times does a 90 year old man try to crawl on the ground to get close to his great grandson??). Finally I gave Kyle the camera and helped Kayden up and he wrapped his arms around my neck and screamed hysterically until great grandpa gave up and went back to his chair. It was pretty funny to watch and I felt kind of bad for Dee that he made such a big effort and was shot down worse than before. But we did get the whole comical seen on video which is a plus and will be fun to watch for years to come!

After we open presents, play and chat then Marty loads up the Greats and heads back to Scribner to take them to there Assisted living and we head to Kearney to meet my family for Midnight Mass.