Christmas Eve

Part 1 -- The Pizza
Homemade pizzas have been the tradition for sometime now in the Knowles family. We buy about any topping you can think of and everyone gets their own pizza. Rhodes dough is the crust. Spaghetti sauce for the base. Then the sky is the limit (or the amount of toppings we bought). Eliza and I do soy cheese. Homemade pizza is the best!! And the leftovers get us through Christmas Day and Boxing day!


Part 2 -- The Treasure Hunt
For some years now, I (Todd) have put together some kind of "treasure hunt" for a special Christmas Eve present -- which, remarkably enough always turns out to be pajamas. I think it's now officially called the "Pajama Treasure Hunt."
It's gets harder and harder each year to come up with creative places to hide them and creative clues to get them there. Last year was a "National Treasure" theme -- complete with a secret message written on the back of our framed copy of the Declaration of Independence (or maybe the Constitution -- I'll have to check. But I would have to check with a special light that will reveal the "invisible ink"). This year the weather limited my hiding places and my ability to go get special things for clues -- like ideas for invisible ink. I finally decided to work with the weather. I've included a video clip below of the discovery -- you'll see what I mean about working with the weather.
This year's clues centered around movies that each of the kids have watched . . . over and over again (usually as younger children). So each child got to be an expert for a clue. Nothing too spectacular -- but the clues were rather tough, very much riddle-like that took some thinking. But, as usual, they solved the mystery and uncovered the treasure.















Part 3 -- The Puppet Show
As a new feature this year, Abigail and Thaddeus put together a little puppet show that was sort of a take off on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Thaddeus' contribution also included a "Boise State Bronco" puppet -- which he helped make. (All puppets were homemade by Thaddeus and Abigail from the cardboard core of a toilet paper roll. Mr. T.D. Knowles contribution to the dialogue was that when the reindeer games were played, they "played football." 2 other times in the story Abigail paused and Thaddeus added, "And they played football" and the stage went crazy for a minute. Pretty much had us in stitches. You might notice, by the way, the Boise State theme colors for the tie-dyed pajama shirts for the older members of the family. Pink tie-dye for the younger girls.















Part 4 -- The Christmas Message
I (Todd) finished the evening with a Christmas message from Luke 2. I emphasized the role of the angels in this story. It seemed to me that the last General Conference had a more-than-usual discussion of the ministry of angels. We had talked about it some in our family in the previous couple of weeks and this was one more opportunity.