It's Christmas Eve, and that means two things here in the Bitner household:

1.  Bitner Weird Food Buffet

In my house growing up, we ate pretty simple foods.  We were a meat-and-potatoes kind of family.  But, when I married Brad, I was introduced to what I call Bitner Weird Food.  They like lots of dips and savory vegetables and spicy meats.  Since my kids are all Bitners and have inherited the Weird Food gene, this is what we have for Christmas Eve.  It works for me because I don't have to cook a big dinner.  We just set it all out on the table and everybody grazes while we laze around and play games.  It's pretty swell.

and, of course,

2.  Opening the "soft presents"

Back when she only had 3 or 4 grandchildren, my mom started a tradition of making Christmas pajamas for the grandkids to open on Christmas Eve.  Now she has 24 grandchildren, but she still makes jammies for them all to open the night before Christmas.  It is awesome for the kids to open them up and know that somewhere across an ocean, their cousins are all opening up similar packages and wearing similar jams.  It really helps us feel closer to our family on Christmas Eve.

All day long, my kids kept asking me when it would be time to open the "soft presents" because they knew that once those jammies were opened and put on, Christmas had officially begun.