Christmas 2011

We spent Christmas Eve with friends and Christmas Day with family.  The Merrills are some of our favorite people on the planet.  They hosted a very fun and cozy evening.  They invited the Rauch's too, which meant all of the doggie friends were together.  Shadow, Velvet, Max, and Dirk make a great party.  Santa even took a few moments from his busy evening to stop at their house and bring a little teaser present to the kids!  That was pretty darn cool.

 Brayden, Maddie, and Grace all take guitar lessons from DJ who is great about preparing them with a good Christmas music on their guitars.

We came home and put on our new Christmas jammies from Grandma and set out some fudge and milk for Santa and 2 carrots for each reindeer.  Oh these years are just going to be too short for me.

Christmas Morning:
Let's just say it's not my favorite when Christmas falls on a Sunday.  I hate feeling guilty that "it's such a pain to have to go to church on, what?, the day we celebrate Christ's birthday?"    If only we had 11:00 church, I would be ok with it.  I know - I haven't exactly solidified my place in Heaven.  We had many family discussions about whether to open presents before church or wait until we got home.  I'm a girl of tradition.  I can't open presents in church clothes.  I can't have make up and hair done in Christmas morning pictures.  I've got to be ugly and the kids have got to be half asleep with dreamy eyes.  We've got be in our Christmas jammies from Grandma and have bed-head.  So, even though Grace (traitor!) sided with her practical dad and said she'd wait (seriously Grace?  you will pass by your presents and happily go out the door to church?!)  I promised Harriet I would wake her up early and hope that the other two followed us down the stairs to frivolously open presents before church.  They consented and we had a great Christmas morning.  I may not have showered for church though.  My hair still looked pretty good from Christmas Eve so I just went with it.

In the end, we didn't really have to get up too early, and Grace was the first one up.  The girls have their own Christmas trees which they kept in their own rooms this year.  I let them buy new lights.  Harriet found purple ones.  I think they look so cool in her purple room.  They hoped Santa might leave one present under them.  (he did!)

Then, they padded down the stairs with their first presents in-hand:

 Youngest to Oldest at our house:  Hattie first!

 

Looks like David was a good boy!  He got the "ergo control II bar ends" for his mountain bike.  I swear, he and Grace sound like the kid on A Christmas Story when they tell you what they want.  They are very specific.  Good thing Santa knew what the heck he was talking about.

 The grand prize - the skateboard she has been talking about for at least 6 months.  It even has a dragon on it (her new animal obsessions are dragons and owls.)

 Little Miss Muffet has been wishing she had "jammies with feet in them" since before winter.  Looks like Santa was listening!

And "a dolly" as she whispered in Santa's ear several times this season.  This dolly looks so much like Harriet - from the tangly wavy hair to the little dew drop chin.  Harriet adores her and named her "Marie" after her own middle name.

Santa never forgets the doggies:  candy cane rawhides to chew

Velvet had to take hers outside.  She always insists on taking long chewing projects outside - even if it is 10 degrees.  

Many months back, Grace saw a video game in a used section of a game store.  "Avatar: The Last Airbender, game cube game" to be precise.  She wanted it, but I told her she should ask for it for Christmas (and thinking the wii version would be better anyway so we should look for that instead.)  She wouldn't think of it, but wanted the exact game that she saw and wrote this in full on many a Christmas list and spelled it out for Santa a few times too.  He thought he might know a bit more about games than she does.  She thought it was hilarious that he wrote "trust me" on the package.  Turns out the wii game does the trick.

Flynn Ryder and Aladdin!  Wow, Rapunzel and Jasmine had a lucky Christmas!  Now all the princesses have their proper companions.

And, Grace sat on the skateboard for the rest of the day and wore the helmet even longer.  We eventually did get her to take the tag off the top.

 Yes, Santa does rock.  Easy Bake Oven!  As much as I hate the whole "cupcakes for little girls" theme that you see everywhere, this little girl loves a cupcake more than just about anything.  She is always begging me to make them and could not be more thrilled to be able to make her own now!

The girls' school has a bookstore and they stock it with easy little Christmas gifts in December so that kids can do their own Christmas shopping without parents.  Grace and Hattie took their own money and bought things for each other, the dogs, parents and grandparents.  David looks pretty excited to be opening his from Hattie.

had to throw in this picture because she is just way too cute.

 Thanks to Jess and Nick, David is all outfitted for the Utah football game today in Texas.  Go Utes!!

For our gift to the girls, remember, David and I gave them the little play house back in October?  Well, I really wanted them to have a little gift under the tree from us too.  I never do anything hand-made, so I thought I'd try this year.  Last summer, I randomly came across a remnant of the exact same fabric that our kitchen in Massachusetts had on the upholstery.  We had the most darling kitchen nook/bench and the kids still talk about how much they miss it.  When I saw the fabric, I just bought it, not really knowing what I would do with it, but knowing the kids would love having something made out of it.  After Hattie asked for the Easy Bake Oven and we gave them the play house, I thought making aprons might be appropriate to go with them (and it would be a good reminder of being in our old kitchen too.)  I saw these hand-made aprons in this little shop in Arizona in November.  The pattern looked super cute and easy, so I thought I could do it myself just by eye-balling it.  It was kind of hard to make them without the girls to try them on while adjusting things.  I need to go back and probably shorten them a bit and definitely fix the neck ties.  But, I think they turned out pretty well for totally making it up!

I never really talk about my own gifts.  I hate saying "look what I got!"  But, I've got to give some credit here to David.  He so rarely picks out presents for me and if he does, it's even more rare that it's a surprise and something sparkly to boot.  Thanks, babe, for the surprise.  I love it.  

(and no, I will not be starting a hand-modeling job anytime soon.  yikes.  looks like he should have put a manicure gift certificate in that box too!)

And, a wonderful Christmas day, we did have!

After church, we had David's parents, sisters, and cousins Janie and Evan over for lunch and dinner.  I must have been too busy cooking to take lots of pictures.  I wish I had taken a few when we were opening presents with them.  David's siblings all went in on a big gift for Grandpa.  I have never seen anyone more touched to receive a gift in my life.  He was so emotional about it and looked so truly thankful.  I think the joy of watching people open presents is really the best way to symbolize the meaning of Christmas.  No wonder we celebrate Christ's birthday with Santa and no wonder we overdo, to the point of losing our minds, to get the right thing for everyone and make the most delicious food and do everything we can to acknowledge anyone who means something to us that year.  My author and columnist friend in Massachusetts, Julie Berry, wrote a really great article about doing so much at Christmas and why we do it.  A Gift of Survival

Anyway, here are the last of the pictures:

big people table:

little people table:

We did a non-traditional dinner.  At the last minute, we decided to ditch the turkey and do Cuban pork loins, garlic-spinach mashed potatoes, and cranberry-apple salad, and roasted butternut squash with peppers.  It was so good.  I am still thinking about it.

We are so lucky.  We know that so many in the world, even in our own city, do not have what we have.  We wish that every kid in the world could spend a day opening presents, eating great food, and enjoying being with their family members.  We wish a Merry Christmas to all! 

December Doings

Oh yes, we've done a lot, as usual.  Today turned out to be a nice day - snowed in at home.  We were supposed to go skiing, but the roads out of Albuquerque were all closed.  (daddy may have been more sad about that than mommy... but he did cook up a gourmet lunch for us, so he must not be too mad.)

Here's what we've been up to this Christmas season:

getting snowed on:

 visiting Santa at the Galloping Grace Christmas Corral (ie- Christmas village and tree lot)

buying the biggest tree (literally) that they had at the GGYR tree lot:

getting that tree to stand up and then decorating it:

getting snowed on some more:

making gingerbread houses at school:

 making gingerbread houses at home:

enjoying the GGYR Christmas village that we helped to paint:

 (The Elves' house)

 (Santa's post office - the girls painted the railings themselves!)

 (the school house - this thing is so cool, it's JUST like an old fashioned school house inside.  The girls would have played in there all day if I had let them.)

going to the girls' holiday parties at school.  Both classes did a fun book exchange and party with treats and movies:

(Grace, with her boy friends, as usual)

 going to the Nutcracker on my 36th birthday with my gorgeous girls:

 and meeting up with a few girl friends from the neighborhood:

opening some fun early Christmas presents from Aunt Em while we skyped with my family's Christmas party in Salt Lake:  (caw, caw)

and counting down!  According to our advent calendars (the one Grandma stitched for us, the chocolate-a-day ones, the little cards with windows from the school librarian, the paper chain Harriet made at school - pulling one link off each day, and the candle from our neighbor that we burn down to the next dot each night while we read scriptures about Christ), Christmas Eve is TOMORROW.  We are SO excited at our house.  Grace and Harriet are full believers and trust in Santa to make our days very merry and bright!  Nearly time to turn on that Santa Tracker!