Wow! I am not even sure where to begin. This December was a whirlwind of crazy schedules, mad shopping, holiday cheer and not nearly enough time to enjoy it all. (Do any of you feel cheated out of a week of Christmas having Thanksgiving be so late this year? We also lost a full week for the snow so all of the craziness was crammed into a two week period.) For the first time in our history, Casey didn't put lights on the house and I scaled way back on my house decorations. I don't think this will become a trend...we just ran out of time this year.
So, part of what makes our December so busy is our business. On our snow week, all of the company parties that we had scheduled postponed to the following week...which was already busy! So, Casey had really one weekend this year of huge events and he was prepping and running around like a mad man. The picture below is the party we did at Guaranty RV. They are such great clients and they loved our brand new resin chairs. (Which rent out for twice as much as our standard chairs! bonus!)
Next up are the ridiculous choir, band, church and elementary school concerts that are packed into December.
We kicked it all off with the Stake Christmas concert. The girls (minus Lydia) were asked to sing for it. They sang a song in four parts called "Tomorrow Shall be My dancing Day." I know, it doesn't sound like a Christmas song but the "dancing day" refers to Christmas day where tradition in other countries was to dance around a manger in honor of the Christ child. The girls did a great job.
Next up was the "Ye Old Feaste" at the High school. It was a dinner theater event where the choirs had parts to play as we ate. Charlotte was chosen to be a beggar and she and her ensemble group had to walk around to the tables begging for money in exchange for songs. (This is how they fundraise.) We gave them a few coins for a verse of Silent Night. We ate pork and potatoes and had a merry old time! Poor Charlotte was so tired by the end of the week. (They had to cram all of their practices into one week since they lost a week due to snow)
Lydia had her 1st grade program last week at the school. Since we have been to five of these programs, we have heard (and re-heard) all of the songs but we enjoyed watching Lydia sing. Afterwards, she met in her classroom to get a gift from her teacher and gather her Christmas projects to take home.
After the concerts, baking, caroling, company parties and everything else was done, it was time to get down to prepping for the best part of Christmas...Christmas Eve. I have always loved the Eve part of Christmas more than the day. The anticipation and our fun traditions makes Christmas Eve so memorable.
This year, we fed 24 in our little home. That required moving furniture out and three of Casey's tables plus chairs in. I was fortunate enough to acquire three different colored overlays for my tables last October so we were able to some cute tables!
Green, blue and red...the kids LOVED the different colors and they all wanted to sit at the blue table! Sorry Mom...no china involved this year! We went with paper plates and cups! No one seemed to mind and the clean up was super fast!
Dinner was ham and potatoes (provided by me) while everyone else provided rolls. drinks, two salads and bacon wrapped green beans. We each brought desserts to share after the program. After about an hour of eating, we did a minimal clean up and left for Grandma Walburger's house.
There, we had our traditional nativity play with the little ones as the cast.
Mary and Joseph did a great job in their starring roles!
Allison and Cassandra were shepherds.
Lydia was King Herod
Sam was Spiderman....wait...Spiderman?
Yes, right in the middle of the play, Spiderman crawled down the stairs to be a part of things. I guess even Spiderman wants to celebrate the birth of Christ!
This is the whole cast. We also had three wise men but I didn't get a good pic of them. What a good looking group!
After the play there was a knock on the door and the kids were thrilled to discover two gigantic boxes and a letter from Santa. The letter, which talked about all 24 people individually...in poem, was 39 pages long. The kids that hadn't been to one of our Christmas Eves before were mesmerized by the letter's length as it was unrolled across the floor. Note the little girls hanging all over the back of the chair, reading along.
The boxes were filled with a gift for each child. Most of the kids got pajamas but our kids got blankets. (We have three teenagers and they really don't need more pjs. The younger kids have all of the pjs handed down from the older three)
When we got home from Grandma's house, before we could send everyone to bed, Lydia had to spread her "reindeer food" all over our front porch. (She is the only one in the family that still believes in Santa...Allison figured it out a few days before Christmas)
After a pretty good sleep and a surprising wake up call at 7:30....we are used to 5:30 so the extra hours was a welcome surprise. (We really were expecting kids to wake up much earlier than that)
We started with stockings, had breakfast and then dove into the presents.
For breakfast we had our traditional Tea Ring with ham and cheese filled scrambled eggs. (That's a tradition that I grew up with)
After a few hours of leisurely opening presents (we really wanted to take our time)...we were left with the mess that follows Christmas morning.
After spending a few hours cleaning up the mayhem, we went over to the Walburgers for a little Christmas celebration. There, we had lunch/dinner of leftover ham in homemade rolls. (I made a quick batch this morning after present opening was complete.) After lunch, we opened a few more gifts. Grandma had made 40 hats for her 40 grandchildren. My girls got to pick out their hat in advance but the real surprise was that she also included gloves with each gift! She is amazing!
We rounded out our amazing Christmas with our second call of the day to my parents in Russia.
We are so grateful for the life that we have and the blessings that our Heavenly Father has given us. Most of all, I am grateful for that babe born in Bethlehem and the Atonement that I use every day!
Here are the last few weeks.
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