As for most families, Christmas Eve is traditionally a family time for the Owen family. However, that doesn't always mean we do traditional Christmas activities. We have celebrated Christmas Eve living in a church when our house blew down in a typhoon in 1997, on the plane and in airports (two years ago we had two Christmas Eve's in Guam and Hawaii when we flew from Guam to California on Christmas Day and crossed the international date line) and in many other different ways. We don't always have all our family together since we are spread out all over the world, but this year we had all our kids except Missy with us and she will be coming in January. Here are some pictures of our Christmas Eve celebration starting with our traditional treats. 
Since we have been living on Guam, one of our traditional treats has been drinking coconut milk. Here Mike cuts the coconuts off the tree, Joyce prepares them, and Milo and Courage enjoy that fresh, sweet coconut milk. 
A more traditional treat is the caramel corn pictured above. Here the kids help grandma pop the popcorn to get it ready for the caramel covering.
Meanwhile, Serenity poses with the Christmas decorations....
When we are on Guam at Christmas Eve we enjoy going to the Guam Lutheran Church for the Christmas Eve service. In the past we enjoyed the traditional liturgical service but this year they had the service in one of Guam's many caves with a living Nativity scene in the cave. Though I don't agree with the scholars that think Jesus' birth took place in a cave, it was still a very cool approach to worship and we all enjoyed it very much. On the way to the service Milo fell asleep right in the middle of getting a drink of water. I guess he was tired. He still woke up in time to see the carabao in the cave. Our family posed next to the cave for a Christmas Eve photo.
After the service we headed over to Shirley's Restaurant for dinner. Matt had to get some of their famous spam fried rice before he went back to California. Students Scott Hubbard and Meluat Meluat (He took this picture and our family picture above) and Daisy Murdock, our PIU Dean of Women, joined us for dinner.
A very nice Chamorro lady was sitting at the table next to us in the restaurant. She made some traditional toys for the kids, birds and flowers, out of coconut palm leaves. Serenity preferred to eat my water glass.
After dinner we headed over to Tumon to tour the Underwater World Aquarium. We got there at 8 PM just as it was closing and were the last ones to go through that evening. It is an amazing experience to see the sharks, rays and other fish all around you as you walk through the underwater tubes. Courage was at full-volume excitement throughout the tour.
Milo's favorite part was the little pools at the end of the tour where the kids were encouraged to touch the animals and the shells.
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