Making a Merry Merry Christmas

This December was definitely missing many traditions we enjoy other years. There were no Christmas concerts or performances at the kids' schools. (Okay, we might not have missed those as much as some of the other things.) There was no Christmas Concert from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or Carol Service from the Cathedral of the Madeleine. We desperately missed our annual night of carol-singing with our friends Martin and Becca. However, Troy and I decided early on (we are talking around Halloween here) that Christmas would need extra attention, and that due to all of the missing plans and activities, we would have to be extra deliberate in our celebrations. (I have said it already, but one thing I am the most grateful for is the fact that Troy and I feel the same way about Christmas and the importance of really celebrating it.) 

So no, things weren't quite the same, but there were several traditions we were able to carry on plus we really did make an extra effort to add cheer and celebration. Some things that we were able to still do were attending Zoo Lights, which was fun because we went early in the month and took a couple of the kids' friends with us. Chase had some Moore boys along and they just took off on their own. Emma and Romney had some Buchert girls and I think they were overjoyed to be there with friends.  Also, my friend Becca and I decided to have our annual Christmas date. Usually we hit a few stores and the German Festival up at This is the Place State Park before settling down for a movie and crafts. We had to skip the festival due to the fact that it wasn't happening. We did go to Modern Display to enjoy the Christmas Village display and the weird collection of Santas. We also got some cocoa and then watched a movie at my house while we both worked on knitting projects.

Another of our favorite traditions is attending the Peter Breinholt concert. He and his band usually play downtown at a nice venue but of course this year they couldn't do that. Instead the band live-streamed a show from Peter's house. Of course it wasn't the same at all but that didn't mean it wasn't fun to listen to his great music. 

I myself really enjoyed picking out some neighbor gifts and delivering them right at the beginning of the month as a "Welcome Christmas!" treat. I picked out pine-scented dish soap and Christmas-y dishtowels along with the ornaments I like to make each year - this year was a mushroom. I really enjoyed delivering those right at the start.

There were a couple of fun things for the kids - our church asked the younger kids to send in a photo that represented one line from a little carol and then the leaders put together a video slideshow of all the photos set to the carols. Emma was a little embarrassed but I thought she looked really cute as she dressed up to play the part of Mary.

Also, a really good buddy of Chase's who lives in Bountiful asked him to be her date for the evening - her school was supposed to have a Christmas dance at her school but - shocker - it got cancelled. She and her friends decided to plan a date night anyway and asked dates. Paige and Chase have always wanted to go to a dance together and so they dressed up, went to dinner and hung out at Trolley Square then went to her house for treats and a movie. I think they had a great time. Having good gal-pals has always been a really good thing for Chase and I'm so glad they did this.

 

So yes, we filled up our December with celebrations. We made sure to bombard ourselves with music and movies and treats for ourselves and our neighbors, and tried to savor every bit of the holiday until Christmas Eve finally arrived.

Christmas Eve was actually the most normal feeling out of all of our celebrations. We ended up holding our breakfast gathering with the friends we always see - just one other family, and we had crossed paths quite a bit and decided that we felt pretty comfortable still getting together. I made sweet rolls  and fried potatoes and Becca made quiche. We listened to the Choir at King's College at Cambridge's carol service live over the radio, 8am our time, and it was as majestic and lovely as usual. Becca gave me the cutest apron covered in wildflowers and I gave her brass candlesticks to add to her collection of Halloween decorations. She and I both had epiphanies this year about what we actually liked about decorating for Halloween. 

After breakfast we went home and got ready for the annual trip to Crystal Hot Springs. We normally go with Troy's brother's family but they didn't want to brave the crowds this year, which I don't blame them for. We invited our tree-hunting family friends to go with us and they hopped right on board. I was so glad. We met them at up in Honeyville and we were all really surprised at how crowded it was and how we felt like not that many people there were concerned about covid. It was slightly freaky. However, we had a lovely time soaking in the hot water. It was a really sunny and frankly pretty warm day - we missed the magic of being outside in the freezing snow but it was still really fun.

After the springs we went to Mary's house - we hadn't had our family celebration of waffles and wassail yet and happily the Burnett's were up for that part of Christmas Eve as well. We made sourdough waffles and fruit and whipped cream and many many other delicious treats which we gobbled up while watching The Muppet Christmas Carol on their giant screen in the basement. It was just awesome to have these dear friends to celebrate with - both of us were missing our families and were feeling rather lonely. Christmas Eve with the Burnetts was just delightful. We got home so late that we were rather dragging ourselves to read a few Christmas stories before collapsing into bed. Also turns out that I took zero pictures on Christmas Eve. Oh well. 

I had a really good time picking out presents for the family. It seemed like inspiration struck me more than once. I was so excited for presents in the morning!

Everyone got a tee-shirt in their stocking. Troy's was a very sad Jason in front of a Friday the 12th calendar. Romney's was a Merry Krampus shirt, Emma's was this hilarious one with bugs all over it, each with a name referring to various pop-culture characters. Chase's may have been my favorite - the classic ET silhouette in front of the moon only the bicycle rider was a T-Rex. A very happy T-Rex. That was fun - everyone was laughing at each other's shirts. That was great. 

Here are the other things that people got that I was so excited and happy to pick out:

Troy - very handsome Eddie Bauer Boots, a new headlamp and the most incredible Norwegian Fisherman's sweater. It's so beautiful. Also he got another Christmas Vacation figure to add to our village.

Chase - the next level in climbing lessons plus his own climbing shoes, a Papo dinosaur (I think we have the full collection of these models), a game and a portable battery, and his favorite weird energy drinks. Oh and this great sushi hoodie. The other kicker for him was that in mid-December, after our power outage and we laughed so hard at his Krong-impersonation, I decided he needed a Kronk-themed gift and I could find NOTHING on the internet except a complicated pattern for this intricate scarf with Kronk on it. I found out later that if I had actually gone TO the actual Disney store I would have found a very cute Kronk mug but I'm not sorry that I took the time to make this scarf. I love it so much. Ok it took until the middle of January to finish it but I love it so much. And I even catch Chase wearing it sometimes. 

Romney - adorable weird fishy-in-a-baggie earrings, a vintage black dress and sweater, a whole lot of acrylic paint, play tickets to see Les Miserables in April, and for her the best gift was the full set of DVDs of Parks and Recreation, her favorite show. She actually teared up when she opened it. That was so cute. 

Emma also got a play ticket, as well as several Hufflepuff items like a sweatshirt and phone case. I was also very excited about this super cool set of sheets she got that are all connected in one piece so they never NEVER EVER come untucked. I love them so much. Luckily so does she. But really the best gift of all was inspiration on my part -  she had asked for a bunch of youtuber merch but I looked at it and just couldn't bring myself to buy it. Instead I found her a stuffed animal named Apa, this six-legged ox-faced adorable thing from her all-time favorite show, Avatar. It's so cute and she sleeps with her arms wrapped around it every night. That was a home-run. 

I got showered with things as well - I got enough yarn to make myself my own real grown up cardigan sweater. I'm scared but so excited. Also some new Birkenstocks that I can wear with cute socks. I also got a lot of cute socks. And Romney had my name in the drawing this year - she gave me this sweet monster stuffy which I haven named Marley, as well as a promise for a date to go get fancy ramen. And jingle bells. It was a great gift. I am smiling just thinking about it. Also Troy gave me another apron which I love even more than the one from Becca - a Dune themed one that just makes me happy. The Spice Must Flow!!!

 

It was really a fun morning together. I love being with my family. We spent the evening trying out a new Christmas movie called Klaus while we feasted on grilled pork loin and other delicacies. 

Treeless Tree-Hunting Trip

We just could not celebrate Christmas without going to the Bear Lake Cabin! It had to happen. This year we went even though we had no intention of hunting for a tree. The Burnetts were not able to go the weekend of Thanksgiving or the weekends before or after, and we ourselves just got too sad thinking of waiting until halfway through December to get our tree up. So....we ended up making a tree-free tree-trip. We wondered if it was going to feel empty or lacking at all, but you know what, it wasn't. It was another wonderful weekend together in the hills around Bear Lake with dear friends. 

There were a few hiccups - for starters, our dear Inigo the Land Cruiser is getting new guts installed and has been in the shop for several months now. We really miss him. And we can not traverse the snowy hills of Idaho without a four wheel drive vehicle. Lucky for us Mary just so happens to have two Chevy Tahoes. I do not know why or how. But yay! We could still go. Also there were a few little generator glitches but nothing that kept us without power for too long.

You would think that without our big excursion on Saturday we might have gotten a little bored. Instead we just burrowed right in to that cozy cabin and made the most of a very relaxing time. Of course we had a great time cooking and eating together. There were lots of games - the kids played several rounds of their favorite game, The Sheriff of Nottingham. And of course, my favorite part, a very heavy dose of Christmas movies. 

Troy and Mary and I did slip away for a drive up the hill and a not-very-long walk along the crest, looking around some old building left-overs and enjoying a very beautiful view.

I'm very grateful for the chance we have to visit this beautiful place with some of our favorite friends. It was still a great part of our holiday, even without the expedition up the snowy canyon and search for the perfect Christmas tree. Instead we got to come home to our already decorated house and tree and just flip on the lights. It was really much easier than usual.

Chase had a lot of fun wandering around looking for photos to take - he has a good eye:

Lights Out

One nutty day a couple of weeks before Christmas we were just having a normal old morning with kids doing online school and me puttering around trying to be productive and un-annoying to the kids the same time. It's harder than you'd think. Suddenly there was a big explosion sound from across the street where a bunch of construction was going on at the hospital parking lot. Romney even told me she saw a flash through the attic window. And just that moment all our lights blinked out and three confused kids came to me with questioning faces, wondering what the heck they were supposed to do to attend school with no power and no internet. 

Yay!

Suddenly the day got a lot more interesting. You know, with every kid in the district attending school from home using technology, they are bound to have technological problems all the time from a handful of kids at any given time. But that doesn't mean that there is a lot of patience or understanding or excusal when something goes wrong. At least it has felt that way. So we started scrambling in a hurry. We decided that the best idea was to mooch off of our friends who have a studio apartment in their backyard. I was very relieved and grateful when I contact them and asked about us possibly crashing there for the day and they didn't have any Air B&B guests staying so we were welcome.

We loaded up all our school stuff, plus we gathered some food for lunch there and spent the rest of the day doing school all together in one room. Thank you, my children, for not killing each other that day. It's not easy to do that all in the same room! The distractions are many.

I'll admit that that day really wore me out. I was pretty stressed for the kids and didn't want them to get behind. I felt anxious about the power outage and kept making trips back and forth to grab various things for the kids and check on our heat-dependent pets who were all just fine by the way. I confess to getting extremely and possibly unreasonably crabby. Finally after a long afternoon of school and homework, the sun went down and Troy was on his way home from work. We packed up our stuff, tried to tidy up and left our neighbors to head for home. Troy was so sweet and encouraged us to get take out from one of our favorite restaurants, Zao, and while the kids and I were picking it up, he was home building a fire, lighting candles and even hanging a strand of battery-powered lights in the tree. I am the luckiest. I came home to a cozy and warm living room, good food, and cheerful lights twinkling on the tree. 

What ended up happening was one of those nights that our family will absolutely always remember. We just gathered up in the room with nothing to do but hang out together. We pulled out a family-favorite game, Sheriff of Nottingham, and everyone played. Well, not me. I was curled up on the big chair almost dozing while simultaneously keeping our dear lizard warm. He's a very good little lizard and I'm incredibly fond of him. 

It ended up being a really fun night. The kids were in good moods and making each other laugh like crazy, especially when Chase started making any and all comments in his Kronk voice. I don't dare to share the comment from Troy that prompted Chase to say, in full Kronk, "I don't know, it's pretty far up there," but that phrase made us laugh until we were sick.

It was such a magical night. We finally banked the fire and blew out the candles and crawled under piles of blankets around 10:00 or 10:30 and drifted off to sleep. Just an hour or so later I heard a little click and saw the nightlight in the kitchen come back on. I knew the next day would be business as usual and that was a relief but also a little sad after our really really fun and memorable evening. 

Covering the House in Christmas

Dearest Christmas. We love you so much. 

Early in November when we got a few inches of snow (which turned out to be the most we got for the entire holiday season) we started hankering for Christmas. It was just so festive. All of us started slipping Christmas songs into the daily playlists and getting excited to watch holiday movies. Well, Emma didn't - she was very loyal to Thanksgiving and refused to enjoy anything Christmassy at all before December 1st. We didn't care about her feelings and played it anyway.

Although Thanksgiving was a delight, it was also a way of throwing open the doors to all the music all the time and all the movies all the time and all the stuff all the time. We got our decorations up in a flash. We spent an evening making our gingerbread houses and learned a few lessons about maybe not buying pre-made frosting next time due to the fact that it slides slowly down the face of gingerbread with little to no gluing power. But the houses still made a festive scene on top of the microwave. We went shopping for a new Santa and I found a fun Lego advent calendar. Troy started calling me Buddy the Elf. Now that's a compliment I can live with.