Christmas Festivities

After Thanksgiving, we did our traditional setting up the Christmas tree and drinking hot cocoa. This tradition is one from my childhood. I remember going to my grandparents' house next door, helping decorate their tree, and then turning off all of the lights and drinking cocoa and eating cookies and bananas while listening to Christmas music on my Grandma's record player. I loved it! I want to keep this tradition alive, and this year it couldn't have been sweeter. 

The kids were so nice about decorating the tree; afterwards they wanted their cocoa in mugs with straws. Super cute. Then we turned off the lights, turned on the Christmas music and just sat as a family talking softly about Christmas. We ended up singing carols too. It was one of those moments that I never want to forget: looking at my sweet family, all holding hands, singing in the beautiful light of the Christmas tree. So blessed.

Ellie found our Santa hat and had to put it on. Miriam had to try it on too. Such a fun night.

We also continued our tradition of burning a small section of candle every day as a countdown to Christmas.

We paired the candle with a nightly message about Christ. We used the 25 Days of Christ, which was great. We made our own felt ornaments, which were a titch ghetto, but still carried the idea. :) We loved reading a scripture about Christ's mortal ministry and sometimes watching it portrayed in the new Bible videos the Church is producing. I was really impressed with how much the stories and details stuck with our kids (especially Ellie of course). She would look at any given ornament and talk about the story it represented throughout the month. It was a wonderful way to remember the Savior as the reason for the season.

For one date night in December, John and I made gingerbread houses. We were serious about this as the person that made the best one got a foot massage at the end of the date. (for the record we called it a tie) :) We also wanted to make them yummy, so we had to use cream cheese frosting and nutella as our glue. (This was also a fun way to use up some of the Halloween candy still hanging around.)

John's finished product.

Me with my finished house.

I didn't really do too many homemade presents this year, but I did make my nephew a dinosaur hat. It turned out pretty good, and Miriam tried to lay claim on it, but I kept it for little Owen.

I can't believe she fell asleep under her bed!

The weather was beautiful, and consequently we took the girls swimming in our complex's hot tub a couple of times. I just had to get a picture of the girls in their swimming suits with the Christmas wreath.

I've never gone swimming on my birthday outside before.

One weekend we did a fun family craft. We took coffee filters and dipped them in diluted paint and food coloring and let them dry.

Then we all cut out snowflakes with them. The kids loved it. Miriam particularly loves anything to do with scissors. It makes me nervous! Ellie did such a good job though. She really got the hang of it.

We hung them up on the ceiling fan and called it our 'snowflake chandelier.' It was pretty great, for a couple of weeks at which point Daddy got tired of running into them. :)

The Sunday before Christmas we drove to Mesa and saw the Christmas lights at the Mesa Temple. So beautiful! We really liked seeing the lights on the palm trees.

It was also fun to notice that with our jackets and coats we were a little too warm to be walking around outside at night (very different from our Utah Temple Square lights trips).

We were shocked at the number of people that were there. The sidewalks were so packed that you could barely move. Fortunately we weren't in a hurry, so it didn't really bother us. It was a beautiful evening, and if you are ever in the Phoenix area during the Christmas season, we highly recommend it!

From my journal: The month of December was a weird one for me. I loved it, but I didn't love it. Two years ago, Christmas time was crazy. Pinterest had just started up and I felt like I needed to give all of these handmade gifts. It was not the best. Too busy. I just felt overwhelmed with my to do list. Last year I decided "no" to the handmade gift idea and had a much better holiday. I really felt the "reason for the season." This year, it was some of both. I really felt the spirit of Christ in the Christmas holiday. We did a nightly story of Christ. The 25 Day of Christ, complete with a story and video for each day. It was really nice. I think the stories really stuck with the girls, and I know it was meaningful for me.

Despite this I felt way too busy to really enjoy the fun of the holiday. Making and sending Christmas cards, trying to order presents for everyone (but not spending too much money, because we have been feeling really poor the last few months), making and delivering Christmas goodies to people in our ward (my goodness this was a pain, it was so hard to find everyone's house. And it was kind of uncomfortable because we were trying to make friends, rather than just giving chocolates to people that were already our friends.), and I tried to do the 12 days of Christmas for John which didn't turn out nearly so well this year (because I was so busy and tried to not spend too much money). Bleh. It was funny to be that busy with Christmas despite not being able to do anything with our families.

We attended the ward Christmas party, which to be honest wasn't that fun. We didn't really talk to anyone. We need to make real friends! :) I went to a girls' night. It was fun. I am hoping to be more part of the 'group.' My goodness, I feel like I am in junior high again. :) We saw the first presidency devotional, went to a RS activity, made dinner for the missionaries, and attended a Honeywell BBQ that was kind of awkward, but hey, John got paid for going. :) We filled a couple stockings for underprivileged children, got the car repaired (hate that), went to two doctors appts, got our blood drawn, and went to one extravagant 5-year olds birthday party.

Then two days later we went to Utah for a week. Whew. Needless to say, we felt busy. I know this sounds complainy because we really did have a nice Christmas season, but I think that feeling like I couldn't spend money, but I was anyway really put the stress on. Then I felt guilty because of the stories I heard about people actually losing their jobs right before Christmas, the injuries people were suffering, etc.

Actually my grandpa fell and broke his hip a week or so before Christmas. So sad. He had an emergency hip replacement and is now in a rehab center. We have been praying so much for him and I am hopeful that he can recover well, but there is this part of me that knows when an older person falls and breaks something major, it is kind of the beginning of the end. I am hopeful this isn't the case though.

Of course we had so much fun though. I just love, LOVE my little family. I can't believe I am so lucky to have them, and I dread anything changing because I am in such a happy place right now. So Ellie isn't allowed to go to school, we are not allowed to buy a house or have any more children, and our current children aren't allowed to grow up at all. :) Just kidding of course. Actually Miriam has grown up in a major way. I am happy to report that she is potty trained! Wahoo! I feel like she is actually at the place where she will tell me if she needs to go. The most major issue we are having with her is waking up in the middle of the night and not being willing to go back to sleep. We have had to make her cry it out quite a bit recently between the hours of 1 am and 4 am. Sorry neighbors. She doesn't cry that whole time just most often wakes up during that time frame.

She said the cutest thing on my birthday. John and Ellie were joking around saying "I am right!" "No, I am right!" etc. When Miriam jumps in with "I'm left." It was so cute! Ellie also said something pretty funny: "Timeouts are a lot easier than making bread." Huh? It was funny. The girls really got into the Christmas songs this year, especially "Away in a Manger" "Angels We Have Heard on High" "Joy to the World" and more recently "Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus." They both sing those songs nonstop. Really. We enjoyed our Arizona Christmas weather immensely. We went swimming (in the hot tub) twice. And didn't wear jackets most of the time. We did a fun craft one day dying coffee filters and making snowflakes from them. We hung them from our ceiling fan, making a snowflake chandelier. Miriam LOVES to play with scissors. It is kind of scary. She doesn't have the same natural fear of sharp things that Ellie has. Miriam has grabbed the Cutco knives several times. Scares me to death.

We saw the Mesa temple lights. So fun. Glad it was warm too. It was also surprisingly crowded. We loved the lights on the palm trees. The Gilbert temple open house and dedication is coming right up. It is a pretty big deal. I have never before been in an area with a new temple being built. They are expecting a half a million people to come to the open house.

My birthday was really fun, although I feel weirdly old at being 27. John woke me up with a fresh smoothie. He actually only had to work a half day because it was the only day between the weekend and the Christmas holiday so everyone was gone and Yogi (his boss) said for him to mark half the day as a group meeting and go home. Sweet! We got ready for our trip the next day, made yummy sandwiches for dinner, ate more Christmas treats and went to bed. John gave me a headset for my phone and a new ebook to read. It was nice.