Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we started with church service in the ballroom here at the resort.

Normally, Carl's family tradition was to go out for a steak meal in the evening on Christmas Eve, but the resort was having a candlelight carols service at 5pm, so we decided we'd rather go at lunchtime than go in the dark after the candlelight service.

We went to the Longhorn Steakhouse. We haven't always made it out for steaks on Christmas Eve -- last year, Carl was dealing with a cracked tooth so we postponed our steak outing until a couple of weeks into January when we figured he would be able to enjoy it more! This year, we made it out earlier in the day.

Christmas Eve Carols and Candlelight Service.

Zoomed in on the Advent Wreath. You may notice that the 4 candles around the side are very tall and thin. The first Sunday in Advent, I thought, "Wow, those will burn down fast!" When the guy came out to light the first candle, he picked it up and flipped the switch on the bottom -- ah, they won't burn down at all!

That theme continued with the candles we used in the service - small electric tea lights!

We each turned our candles on for the final hymn, Silent Night. We missed the "passing" of the light from one person to the next, but it was nice not to have wax dropping down our hands or on the floor!

By the end of the service (when we had the candles on), it was just after sunset. This was the view from the ballroom (second floor) back toward our lot in the east of the park as we left the service.

We enjoyed our Christmas Eve!