12-24-16  Christmas Eve in St. Louis---

Christmas Eve has been the LaBeaume Christmas party night for as long as I can remember.  It use to happen at our house.  But in recent years, the LaBeaume's in Washington, Mo. have taken over the festivities.  Can't say I'm sorry about that!  It's a lot of work getting ready for and hosting a large party.   So now we get to just go and enjoy the parties!

This year we were even invited to the Hick's open house brunch on Christmas Eve with their family and close friends.  So glad to be included in that circle.  They really are great people and I'm happy to call them our friends!

 Carol is another one like Angie and Faith who really does it up for the holidays.  Some people sure have a great knack for that!  I, unfortunately, am not one of them!  She is also a great cook and always has a great spread. 

After brunch, the women retreated to one room of the house and the men to the other. 

 Before leaving, they wanted pictures of all the couples, so we woke Ken up for ours.

 The immediate Hicks's family---minus Joe and his crew.

From there, we went to the more wild and crazy LaBeaume Christmas Eve party.  Basically just the "immediate" family, but that now includes several babies again.  All Ken's brothers (except Mike) and their wives and most of their kids (all but Tim and Faith, I think?) and grandkids were there.  It was a fun time! 

 We've also started doing a rob your neighbor exchange at these get togethers since there are so many people now.  I ended up with a $10 gift card to Target.  Ken got a bunch of candy and some scratch off lottery tickets. 

We partied until late in the evening, then headed back home.  It was nice celebrating with the LaBeaume clan again after missing last year.