As has become our norm, we decorated for Christmas at the beginning of November. I love having the house decorated for longer.
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| Precious Moments Nativity - mom gave us a piece each year for several years |
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| Christmas Countdown |
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| Family Room Tree |
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| Nutcrackers & Stockings |
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| Living Room Tatted Ornament Tree |
Baylie and Bella Howe helped kids with their coloring pages at the Christmas Tree Lighting.
April and I froze our buns off, but had a great time.
I designed a t-shirt. I'm quite proud of it!
We took Elder Carter and Elder Peery to Costco for hot dogs and then to drive through the Living Nativity at Union Methodist Church. The kids had a mutual activity so it was just us and the elders.
Our traditional Christmas jammies around the tree photo.
Jalen helped me harvest mistletoe that we then shared with friends. I love this new tradition. We've done it for three or four years now.
David and I joined Jalen on a Colearn field trip. This has become too expensive, but since it was part of a field trip, it was more affordable. The lights were beautiful this year so I was glad we didn't miss it.
Baylie was working so it was some two-on-one time with Jalen.
Proposing to a monkey.
Channeling their inner Dr. Who.
So many cool lights.
We had another missionary Costco outing - this time followed by a drive through the lights at Saluda Shoals. Baylie was working the lights this night.
There are way more lights at Saluda Shoals than in Spanish Fork.
I made Rosca de Reyes for co-op.
And later made latkes and sufganiyot for our annual Hannukah celebration with Yasmin and kids. This year it was just Jackson. I hear Trader Joe's has good frozen latkes so I'll probably try that next year because they are so tricky to make.
Followed by a game of dreidel. I love this annual tradition.
Another tradition I love is our Soup and Singing night. We always manage to fit a pretty good crowd into our little home. We have such wonderful friends and neighbors.
Christmas is full of traditions for our family. Gingerbread houses is another favorite, especially since I started making the gingerbread myself. Homemade is so much better.
I even made one this year. Usually I just watch.
We love sharing this tradition with the neighbors.
The cute Evert kids helped set out the luminarios.
We had the Everts and missionaries back over for Christmas Eve dinner. The kids tackled Jalen.
Yummy Christmas dinner! We love having guests!
It's especially fun having little people to act out the nativity.
As always, it was a wonderful Christmas full of gifts. We have always been blessed to have good Christmases even in our limited financial situation.
Baylie got a laptop from us and from Grammy and Grandad. It was a Christmas/graduation present.
Jalen was as excited about deoderant and he was the Lego set. He loves to smell nice!
He was also excited about his BYU blanket.
And Ohtani jersey.
Once all the gifts were opened, the kids were pooped! Good thing they have fancy blankets!
I had to throw in videos of some interesting musical gifts.
And then we opened presents. His Aunt Tiffani knows him very well.
So does his mom.
Grammy's birthday is two days after Jalen's so we celebrated her birthday too.
What is Grammy so excited about?? Good & Plenty candy!! Crazy lady!
I think we wore them out.
