Getting the Tree

Although it came a week later than I was planning on, our tree-hunting trip was as pleasant and wonderful as ever. We have fallen into quite the routine - we leave town on late Friday afternoon and find the Burnetts on the road along the way. Following them, we wend our way through the dark and snowy canyons up to Garden City just on the edge of Bear Lake. We drive around the edge of the lake into Idaho and then turn and go up into the hills until we arrive at a quaint little cabin, which we scurry into and start turning on things as quick as we can to get warm.  We bring movies, crafts plus lots of food to cook together - this year I introduced Mary and her kids to our biscuits and gravy recipe, made famous and delicious by our Aunt Tonja. It's so good. We lounge in our jammies way too long and usually almost forget to get out of the cabin to actually go cut down a tree.

This year the word must have spread about the fabulous Christmas trees filling the hills surrounding Bear Lake, because we had a lot of company up there.  Now, I know not everyone is going to get this reference, but the funniest part of the tree-cutting afternoon happened as we pulled up to our little clearing. We arrived just as another family was hauling an absolutely huge tree to their car. We must have clearly been gawking at them because after a minute, the man hauling the tree hollered out to us, "Hey Griswold, where are you going to put a tree that big!?!?" Troy immediately, without a moment's hesitation, hollered the following line right back at them. Now, if you know what the line is, you'll know why I'm not actually writing it down here, but you'll be chuckling none the less. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can either go watch Christmas Vacation or just move on. 

Not only did we have a ton of other tree-choppers this year, we had a little bit of trouble finding a tree! Although the hills were packed with trees, there weren't many that were tall and not smushed in with a bunch of other trees. It wasn't long before the kids were cold and we were all kind of miserable, so Troy and I finally settled on a good-enough tree that ended up tall and straight enough but  a little funny-shaped; stick-skinny at the top and bushy and wild at the bottom.  Oh well! We love it anyway.

One really lovely part of the weekend was the opportunity we took to hold a brief church meeting together on Sunday, after the cabin was cleaned and packed up. It only took 10 or 15 minutes to sing a song, have a prayer, take the sacrament and share words of testimony and gratitude. It's amazing how quickly the mood and feeling in the cabin changed from spirited and jovial to peaceful and sacred as we gathered to worship together. 

 We tried hard to get a nice photo of us by our tree-topped cruiser, but the bright sun made it impossible for Skippidy to open her eyes. This was the best we could do. I like the cabin in the background, though!

As always, this was a great start to our holidays - music, movies, friends, Christmas trees. It's always a little exhausting to get home from a trip and unpack it all and clean it all up and then decorate for Christmas that same day, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Magical World of Sheri

With Peter and Sheri here for Thanksgiving we had festivities planned for the rest of the weekend. Actually, we almost didn't, because I had been planning on our annual tree-hunting trip with our friend Mary. She had suggested "the weekend after Thanksgiving," which I thought meant the Friday and Saturday RIGHT after Thanksgiving, and she meant a full week later. We were packing our bags before we figured out we had the wrong weekend. As sad as I was to have to wait a full week more to get our tree, it was lovely to have extra time with Peter and Sheri.

Sheri, this post is dedicated to you. I myself have a tendency to shy away from events that I know will be packed with crowds of people, no matter how festive they might promise to be. I'm just sure that no amount of holiday sparkle can be fun enough to endure crushing crowds and crying kids. It's good thing I have Sheri around, because somehow she always makes magic happen.

The day after Thanksgiving is a notoriously nutty day, right? Like, the one day to avoid down town SLC at all costs? It's Black Friday, plus the lights at temple square get turned on - it's just insane. There's NO WAY I would ever go there of my own accord. But oh not our intrepid Sheri! And she has a way of drawing me in along with her.

For starters, I ended up at Target with her on Thanksgiving night - she always wants to go and see the spectacle. It was fun to go with her, especially since we didn't find anything that made it worth waiting in line for hours to buy something. We just got cokes and watched the people.  That was pretty fun.

On Friday in the early afternoon we decided to go down town JUST to see the candy window's on display at Macy's.  That wouldn't be too hard, would it? It was early in the day, how much could be happening in the middle of the day? And indeed, it was fun!  The windows, as always, were totally charming. They were just on the edge of City Creek Mall so we stopped at the food court to let the kids play while we ate fries. It was pretty nuts but Sheri Poppins somehow made it seem fun. I think we even went to the Disney store - now that was crowded and engendered in me my usual feelings of panic and I-want-everything-I-see-itis.  (I think I have shopping anxiety.)

Anyway, the candy windows led us to the mall, which led us around the corner to a fun animatronic display in the Zion's Bank windows and then guess what. We were just kitty corner from temple square, only a half hour before the lights were to be turned on. Sheri looked at me longingly and voila, she had me at Temple Square ready for the lighting. How does she do it? We found a perfectly empty bench for our bunch to gather on, right next to the corner cafe selling cookies and hot chocolate. What a sight, to see those lights light up.

 Saturday afforded us a sunny afternoon at the zoo, and we even managed to get Cap out with us. Good thing he adores his little cousins. It's a most convenient way to get him out on family outings.

And of course, any time I get with this little gal is just a treat. How I love being an aunty.

Thanksgiving

Aw. My little pilgrim. She's so cute. I got to start my Thanksgiving holiday by helping out in Skippidy's class during her Thanksgiving party. I don't think most classes do a Thanksgiving party, but Skippidy's cute teacher does! We made homemade butter and made hats and homemade toys. It was really fun.

Thanksgiving started off in my favorite way - with a day of baking pies with my friend Emily. We made key lime, crumb-top apple and pumpkin chiffon. I love my mom's pumpkin chiffon pie, and every year I wonder if people would rather have regular old classic pumpkin pie but I just can't not make mom's chiffon pie. And I was very happy to find that my siblings are all happy that I make it too.

Speaking of siblings, I am extremely happy to report that we had every single sibling in town for Thanksgiving. Peter and Margaret and Adam and their families were all able to make it here for the holiday. It was absolutely wonderful to have everyone together. Everyone but my mom, that is. It was such a strange teeter-totter of feelings. To have my dear siblings, to have every single grand kid here, which has never happened before since little baby Sam was born. And yet, there was a gaping hole. The first major holiday without my mom. She is just too ill and bewildered to leave her care village. That was really hard. And yet it was a delightful day otherwise.

The day was slightly intense for me because I was the only cook who was near my own home, so I was kind of the matriarch of the meal. I planned the menu and made assignments and even cooked the turkey. This is a task that rather terrifies me, and I spent a lot of time watching you tube videos. My final recipe ended up being the love child of the recipes of Alton Brown and Gordon Ramsey. It involved overnight brining and initial broiling and bacon over the breast. It was pretty good, but no where near as delicious or tender as the turkey breast which I seasoned and plopped into the crockpot. If a whole real turkey didn't produce such delectable gravy I wouldn't bother with a whole one ever again.

Whitley was in charge of appetizers, and they could have provided the whole meal, they were so lovely and delicious.

Sheri took on potatoes and a chocolate peanut butter pie, Margaret did squash and Brussels sprouts, I did stuffing and rolls. And gravy.  Oh the gravy. So delicious.

Whitley has a wonderful game to play that gets everyone involved in doing the dishes - the loser of every round has to go do dishes until the loser of the next round takes over for them. It's fun!

We attempted some family photos which resulted in hilarious and occasionally awkward results:

Dad wanted to pretend he was dead and Margaret wanted to pretend she was not part of the awkward situation

We had a very hard time getting everyone to smile and not be silly all at the same time, but we gave it a valiant effort. Maybe photoshop can help us patch together a pretty good picture!

It was such a happy day, and tender too. I love my family dearly.