The Christmas was beautiful this year! We love Christmas and the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feels that come along with it!
We decorated with all the bright lights and sparkly decorations, and this being our first year in this house, had to adapt a bit. Our laser lights got buried because we got so much snow, but the outside of our house still was festive with green and red. Some of our porch decorations even snowed and froze over. We had to move some furniture around a bit because of space issues but it all worked out. We love decorating for Christmas!
Colorful red and green Bob and Rose came back on December 1, helping us to light the world. And this year, instead of just having a service challenge for the day, we read a scripture block, and also had a link for a Christmas music video and a Bible video we watched each day. That helped fill our home with the Spirit of the Lord and keep our focus on Him. And the service challenges helped us look outward and focus on others. From putting together sock kits for those in need to writing down what the Savior's birth means to us, our love for and testimonies were strengthened. One day, we had to write down why we are thankful for the birth of Christ and what it means to us. Here are our answers - happy endings are possible, He is our Savior and our everything, because he cares for us and his birth is a symbol of him coming for us, and Sydnie said she loves the star of Bethlehem.
Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without all the beautiful sounds of carols and anthems of the season ringing in the air. The kids all had Christmas concerts (except for Cov, who just did a Veteran's Day concert in November). Emma and Cal had a band concert and played some neat songs, and Lucy had a band concert too. This was Emma's first concert playing the tuba and she rocked those low notes, Cal had wonderful sound on his alto sax and Lucy played so many percussion instruments. Sydnie also had a dance recital. She was sick most of the month so missed many practices, but her teacher sent her a video of the routine and she practiced with that. We did miss her kindergarten concert because she had a fever that day, sad. But everyone sounded amazing.
Lucy and Covey sang and danced their way through December. They started singing with Simply Sensational, a children's choir that was started up this fall. I help direct the choir along with Deb Archibald. We have eight kiddos and they've been practicing hard and we sang at four events this Christmastime. The kids did so well at our fun program we presented with singing, dancing and speaking parts. We sang "It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas", "Jingle Bells", "Do you Want to Build a Snowman?", "Frosty the Snowman", "Grinch", "Jingle Bell Rock", "When We Seek Him" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Everyone enjoyed their program, especially those at the nursing home. It was so sweet to see how much fun they had performing and how much joy they brought to others.
Our December did have its share of challenges, you could hear lots of coughing and snoring here. We had medicines and tissues and sicknesses aplenty around here. We all took turns with everything from the flu, bronchitis, stomach bugs, and respiratory infections and missed quite a bit of school and work. Right when we thought we were in the clear, things would get worse. I haven't been that sick in a long time, and after 3 weeks of feeling terrible, I finally went to the clinic and got some antiobiotics and finally wasn't feeling like a zombie. At the schools, so many kids and staff were absent too. Grateful for normally healthy bodies, health care providers, medicine and that we were good about a week before Christmas.
The kids helped me bake lots of delicious homemade oreos for our neighbor gifts this year. We made so many batches and they turned out yummy, many said how much they enjoyed them. We also gave everyone an ornament with a different name of Christ on them. Then we all delivered them in the chilly air. We also got lots of cool things from neighbors - decor, rolls and homemade jams, candy, breads, and much more. As Sydnie said "It's just so sweet everyone's bringing us treats, I feel like I'm going to cry!"
We cooked up some fun and flavorful Christmas foods. Sydnie especially loved the Santa pizza she created (her idea), and we had some other snack and meals with a festive flair. I didn't do as much this year because of the aforementioned sickness but we still had some fun baking. Delicious!
We were able to go to some festive parties and had a to miss a few because we were sick. Dave and I got to go to the Rotary Christmas party and Dave was in charge of games and activities. We played some funny reindeer games that everyone seemed to enjoy. Emma took the older kids to our ward Christmas party. They had appetizers and snacks, the kids made crafts, the adults played getting to know you games, and they had a nativity. For the nativity, Lucy was asked to be Mary, and Covey was a donkey. Sad to have missed it! We got to pet donkeys and sheep, see different nativity displays, lit up luminaries and a live interfaith nativity at our Events Center. What a neat event! I wanted to help out but was just on the mend, but my mom instructed me to not help, because usually I do help out with everything and I don't have to do everything and I just needed to get caught up from when we were sick. Party on!
We put together cute little fragrant chocolate gingerbread houses this year. No ones crumbled this year, so that was a good thing. I think more candy ended up in the bellies of our kids than on the houses, haha! They always love this tradition, and we got a nativity gingerbread cookie cutter set for Christmas this year so excited to try that next year. Yummy in our tummies!
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