Christmas At Last

Before I get to actual Christmas, I have to mention one other absolutely fabulous evening that I forgot to write about in the previous post. After our friend Mary appeared quite suddenly one evening early in December with a gift for our family, we really wanted to let her know in return how much we love her and her family. We decided to pick out a little piece of pottery made by our friend Ben and deliver it one evening very near to Christmas. We called her to find out if she was going to be home. The next thing we knew we were invited to visit the lights of Layton Park and have dinner at her house. We rendezvoused at a park in Layton that was absolutely decked out in lights and lit-up figures. It was quite magical. So magical that I did not take a single photo. After a lovely and chilly stroll around the park, we headed to Mary's quaint Victorian house for dinner. Though it was quite impromptu Mary had taken the time to totally deck out her table in Christmas dishes. We enjoyed warming up with chicken chili and her fresh rosemary bread after the cold walk. What a good friend.

Finally it was time for Christmas Eve. It was kind of a funny year - this was the first year without my mom. I mean, she wasn't really with us last year either in truth - but she was in her care center and we all made time and effort to be with her on the holidays, and my dad definitely had that place to go to every day. Not this year. He's been having a hard time. He ended up planning a trip away to California with friends and sort of a blind date in California over Christmas. At first I thought it was strange but as the holiday season wore on and I could see his loneliness I ended up feeling really glad and excited that he had an adventure to look forward to. None of the rest of my family was around for Christmas either so we found ourselves with an open schedule on Christmas Eve. We decided to invite over this absolutely wonderful couple from our neighborhood - we love them so much. They had a baby in the fall and don't have a ton of family around either so we were excited when they accepted and were able to spend the evening with us.

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year which I really enjoy. I love having that spiritual time to focus and contemplate and sing together. That was lovely. Then I came home and quickly cooked all afternoon. I wanted to do a traditional turkey feast and it went pretty well. But not great. It was pretty good but I kinda overcooked the turkey. Not easy to do in a crockpot but somehow I managed it. That's not really the point though. The thing I was most excited about was that I got to use my grandmother's china dishes. I have to say, they are a little bit hideous! She got them back in the 30s I think and they have a touch of art deco and a touch of fussy-flowery-ness and they are cream and gold and pink and well, kind of just awful. And yet somehow I just love them. I love my grandmother - my mom's mom. I was given this set of china and really just haven't used it at all. My husband I think would be fine if I never used them again. I loved having an occasion to pull them out.

And here are the Walkers with the deliciously adorable baby Thomas. We absolutely loved having these dear friends over. We planned a rather rigorous schedule even Buddy the Elf would have been proud of - I had quite the list of activities. Ok, we didn't eat entire rolls of toll-house cookie dough. We did enjoy dinner, plus making cookies and decorating them for Santa, plus watching A Muppet Christmas Carol, plus eating awesome waffles for dessert. I think the Walkers kept trying to leave but we wouldn't let them because we kept having more things we wanted to do with them. My kids were so happy. They love the Walkers.

Finally though they made it out the door and we settled everyone in for a reading from the Bible as well as The Night Before Christmas. We committed everyone to staying in bed for the whole night and strictly forbade them from entering the living room until they all came upstairs and got us out of bed first. I did get a couple of visits during the night from sleepless little monsters but I sent them back to bed. Troy and I did get to enjoy a few quite minutes by the tree in the quiet dark and firelight, just like we hope to every year. That's my favorite. But we were pretty dang tired so it didn't last long.

Morning came very quickly and the kids weren't shy about bombarding us and getting us out of bed. We insisted on a five minute snuggle first.

I'm going to brag about a couple of things that I was super excited about on Christmas morning. First was the stockings. Santa may have decided to fill the stockings this year with a whole heap of treats that come from the fun little shop Pirate O's. Santa may have spent more than usual on these goodies this year because Santa just couldn't resist all delightful looking European chocolates and sweets. Santa sampled a few and felt happy about his choices.

The thing that I put a ton of time into was two scrapbooks for each kid. Over the years I have saved the kids creations, treasures and notes - I've kept packets of their drawings and funny little invitations and things like that. I just didn't know what to do with them. I made them into books - pretty simple books. Just plastic sheet protectors with three ring binder clips holding them together. They are so fun to look through though. I also saved my favorite pieces of their art and was so happy when I found these big portfolio books to slip them into. I'm delighted that I no longer have piles of art shoved in corners of my house. The books look great and will be so easy to add to. I love them and I think the kids got a kick out them too, although they probably will appreciate them more later. (Oh gosh that makes me sound old.)

Some other memorable gifts were a watch for Chase, walkie talkies for the girls, Chase's first concert tickets (Philip Phillips in March) and play tickets for the girls (Newsies in July - front row!). I was most excited about the play tickets - I made a scrapbook for the girls and me, and put all the programs to shows we've already seen in there, and the girls have been writing memories about the plays. I'm so excited to add to this book since going to musicals has become one of our favorite things.

I'm also pretty happy about a gift I gave my brother Peter - we had them this year and it was so fun to pick things out for them. A bracelet and a spa trip for Sheri and for Peter? Well, for starters he made this hilarious comment one day about Star Wars - how Uncle Owen had every right to be concerned about Luke going to Toschi Station to pick up Power Converters because it turns out the Power Converters are a group of strippers and definitely up to no good. We thought this was hilarious. So...I made a t-shirt for Peter advertising the Power Converters' appearance at Toschi Station. I thought that was hilarious. But the really big gift that was way beyond our usual Christmas Giving was a surprise ticket to Hamilton when it comes in April. We both love it so much, and I have a friend who was able to get tickets early. I was so grateful that Troy encouraged me to go and to take Peter with me. I am beyond excited to go.

What a very Merry Christmas.