Christmas Day 2007

Christmas morning was amazing. Grace has been wanting a bike all year and has been sincerely hoping to find one under the tree. She was absolutely thrilled to find just that thing on Christmas morning. Harriet is finally understanding a little of the magic and excitement. She even got the hang of trying to find "our elf" each morning during the month of December. ("Red" came each day to check on our house and reported to Santa each night!) Hattie found a bed full of baby dolls under her tree and was ecstatic. She has loved the Christmas tree, the lights, the bells, the music, and most of all - the BABY JESUS figures in the nativities!Having little kids and believing in Santa with them is one of the true miracles at Christmas. I don't care what some people might think of me, but for me, Santa and Christ go hand in hand and what better way to celebrate Christ's birth than to experience the pure joy of a child? Our only flaw of the morning was that for the second year in a row, we have finished opening all our gifts to realize that we didn't take a single photo! David manned the video camera through it all and I tried to orchestrate the chaos of passing presents and helping the girls open them and there just wasn't a second camera man available! In a way, it speaks to how excited and wrapped up in things we get that we totally forget to take pictures while we're opening gifts. I guess we trade being in the moment for recording the moment with a snapshot.

We did take pictures of everyone enjoying their gifts afterward. We received such an abundance from Santa and from relatives afar that we are still enjoying each gift as we play with it, wear it, or use it for the first time.
After all of the decorating, shopping, planning, wrapping, driving, thinking, mailing, sub-for-santa-ing, baking, and re-doing all of the above, the big day has finally come and gone. Sometimes in the middle of it, I really wonder if I'm doing the right thing by setting all of these crazy standards and trying to do so much - shouldn't Christmas be simple and solely about Christ? Then, when the day comes, I am glad that I did it and sometimes wish I could have done more. I think that threaded through the middle of what seems to be excess is the real Christmas spirit and I don't know if my Christmas spirit would be the same if I pared it down. In fact, I am wishing that I was able to do one more thing that I didn't get to do. I missed the Nutcracker this year with Grace and I felt the hole all season. I planned to take her "after Christmas when things calmed down", but so far, the calm hasn't come. So, I'm afraid it will have to wait until next year. To me, the abundance and craziness and tons of traditions just means that I love lots of people and want to show them that and also that lots of people love our family. And, in the end, I am always humbled by the generosity of everyone. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent, but back to our day. We lucked out and got a warm Christmas day with a melted driveway - perfect for trying out the new bike. David pitched in big time and made a huge turkey dinner complete with all the side dishes and dessert. We had a great time just eating together in our dining room as a family. We didn't go a single place all day long. Even though we do miss going to different family members' houses, we were so grateful for an entire day that could be devoted to playing with the kids and being together without any other agenda.
We do want to say a very big THANK YOU to each person who sent an e-mail, card, picture, gift, or talked to us on the phone or video chatted with us on the computer this season. We felt very loved and remembered.

Christmas Eve 2007

(Grace and Hattie making sugar cookies for pre-school and the neighborhood.
Don't worry - we were all healthy that day and I made sure lots of handwashing went on!)

Christmas Eve was a busy day for us. We started the day by tromping around our neighborhood with goodies and gifts. Apparently, the "neighbor gift" is not a phenomenon in our area. I remember wherever we lived in Salt Lake, it seemed like you always had an endless stack of goodies brought over by the neighbors and/or people in the ward. So much you were sick of eating it all. Even if you forgot a neighbor, you always had plenty of extra to re-gift something real quick. Nope, not here. We have been giving goodies for 3 years to our immediate neighbors (now 6 houses) and no one reciprocates except our sweet friends, Roger and Jeanne and their daughter Elisabeth and her boyfriend Jay. We're not offended. We do like to spread a little Christmas cheer to the people whom we see across the fence or through the yard.

Roger, Jeanne, Elisabeth, and Jay always have something special for our kids tucked under their trees. Grace especially likes visiting their houses and Grace has now helped Jeanne and Roger decorate their Christmas tree for the past 2 years.

After visiting the last neighbor where we found out about noradsanta.org, we came home and started tracking Santa! This was a crazy thing. Grace sat in front of the computer for hours checking off all the countries as he raced through the time zones to deliver gifts. When it was time to leave for Christmas Eve dinner, Santa was in Africa and we had tracked him through Russia, Europe, and the Middle East.

As we drove on the winding roads to the Bahe's house, we marveled over the post-card setting we live in. The snow had a top layer of freezing rain, and in the full moon and Christmas lights it was like sparkling glass. The perfectly decorated country colonial homes were little paintings out of a Victorian Christmas calendar.

We spent the evening with our friends, the Bahe Family and the missionaries in our ward. The Bahe's invited us over to their house for the second year in a row. They have great traditions from soup for dinner to reading the Texas version of The Night Before Christmas (complete with Texan accents), re-enacting the Nativity (Grace was the donkey - hence the gray tail), singing carols (THEY sing well - professional musicians), and playing Christmas songs with hand-made chimes. Grace loves this party. She and Aydan Bahe get along famously. The Bahes also have some great little animals - 2 little dogs, a cat, and a kitten. They kept Hattie busy for sure.
When we got home from dinner, it was pretty late. We were nervous to see where Santa was on the tracker. He was VERY close. Actually, Grace saw him fly through the sky with Rudolf as we drove home. He was working near our time zone in South America. Boy, Santa expected us to be in bed at a good hour! I guess that's how you get on the nice list. Our household has gone back and forth from the naughty to the nice list this past month and we hoped to end up on the nice one! We decided we better hurry ourselves to bed and I think we just made it in the nick of time.

Christmas at the Ward

We went to what was, I think, the best ward Christmas party I've ever been to last night. It was simple, but very nice and everything was timed nicely so it wasn't too long and the pageant was really cute and not too long - so much that Grace said "that's the best play I've ever seen!"

The other great thing was that a lady in our ward went TO TOWN on having a great Santa set up. You could have fooled me. I think the REAL Santa was at our church last night. No fake beard - he was 100% genuine.

Hattie wouldn't sit on Santa's lap and Grace was a little nervous, but she did utter that she wants a bike for Christmas.

Hope your ward party is as good as ours was! (except David just reminded me that we got isolated with the whole deacon's quorom at our table so we didn't get to chat with any of our friends - oh well. at least they like him!)

Oh- and the best part about church this weekend was that we didn't have to go today! One great thing about New Englanders is that they cancel things for a storm. It would have taken more than an hour for us to drive there in the foot of snow that fell right when we would have had to leave. Don't be too jealous :-)

Frosty the Snowman

I built a snowman today for the first time in possibly 20 years. We got about a foot of snow yesterday and today was a glorious blue sky with sparkly fresh snow on the ground. I promised Grace we would try to build a snowman - you can't ask for a better day to do it. The only thing is that we got dry powdery Utah ski snow instead of wet sticky New England snow. Ski snow doesn't make for good snow man building, but I did my best.There was no way to roll up a ball of snow, so we started grabbing handfuls and packing them on top of each other as we went. After hundreds of handfuls and a bit of snow sculpting, we had an almost 3 foot snow man. With all the snow, I was hoping for a bit more of a giant snowman that could be seen over the snow drifts in our front yard. Our Frosty certainly doesn't compare to my friend's Frosty . Chris and her family built a pretty dang good snowman for SLC I have to say.

Will Frosty survive the nor'easter that's blowing through this weekend? We'll keep you posted. I think I'll bring in my wool felt hat and scarf though...

Early Christmas

In a way, Christmas came early for me this year. My mom and Melissa and Sean came out for a 4 day visit. They were able to see Grace's dance recital - a first for them. We also did lots of Christmas shopping, hanging out, and eating. We took the kids on a winter trip to Drumlin Farm and saw the animals in the snow too. Sean loves pigs and Harriet LOVES anything with 2-4 legs that makes a barnyard sound. Grace, of course always loves anything to do with a barn and animals and outside. I didn't take my camera, so I need to get some pictures of the farm from someone else (hint, hint.)

During their last night here, we had a big family old-fashioned Christmas and Birthday party. Melissa and I have birthdays 2 days apart in December and we've always celebrated them together except for the few years I have lived here. We have fond memories of going to our Grandma Primmer's house for Christmas where she baked up a storm of goodies and had the most delicious food for Christmas dinner. We tried our best to re-enact the old parties from when we were little and I think we were pretty successful. I have really missed having a big family Christmas party since we moved here. Sure, we celebrate with friends and ourselves, but it's just not quite the same. Of course there are lots of reasons to be glad that we don't have to go to the family Christmas parties with all of the drama and confusion that sometimes happen (we try to focus on those things when we're feeling blue at the Holidays!), but for the most part, the extended family parties are missed and I know David's family has traditions that he misses too.

So, at this family Christmas party, Sean and Grace and Hattie got to exchange gifts together for the first time as little cousins. That was my most favorite part - to see them open their presents together.

Thanks for coming mo Deb and Aunt Lis and Sean! We love you and we miss all the rest of ya too!

Now, I am most looking forward to seeing my little girls creep down our stairs to see what Santa has left under the tree. That little magical moment has to be the best part of Christmas for a parent.

Grace's Big Night

Grace is in her second year of dance and while I don't know if she is getting better, I do know that she is having fun. She was very excited for Thursday's Christmas recital and that her cousin Sean and Aunt Lis, and Mo Deb could come and watch her. She danced to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer and then in a Finale with everyone that dances at the studio.


She did a great job despite her antlers that kept falling off her head and covering her eyes. She had a great time dancing and watching all the other dancers. I wish that I could say the same.

So if you couldn't be there, here is Grace dancing.

O Christmas Tree

Last Saturday we braved the cold and more importantly the bitter wind to take the kids out to pick out the family Christmas tree for 2007. It was so cold that we minimized our time outside and took the first tree that was short enough to fit in our house. It had just barely been taken off the truck and unbound so we did recognize or appreciate just how full this tree was. To quote Clark Griswald, "... a little full, lot of sap."

We got the tree inside and mounted and quickly discovered that we may have to do some trimming. So, since Michelle is the artist of the family, I got her the hedger and she went to town. You probably don't do that every day! After it was all said and done the tree looks great and we already have presents to put around the tree.

Just don't ask Michelle about ticks in the tree!