Christmastime Traditions

I don't have any pictures, but we did a 12 Days of Christmas for someone again this year and it was great.  I'm so glad we did it, she gave us a note at the end that said how much it had meant to her.  She is a 70-year-old widow in our ward.  I was glad the kids could have that experience again.

Also as usual we loved the Christmas stories every night.  This year we did Come Follow Me as well every night, and I think it added the Spirit for sure!


Here's the day we set up the tree.  They always end up laying under it to look up at the lights.  One kid does it and then they all join in!

Gingerbread house making!  The first day of Christmas break.  Maris covered her house more than ever before.  in cute patterns no less!

Owen did some pretty great candy cane building this year.

I had great fun making stained glass window cookies for a party and won a prize! The before and after.

And back to Emma's house haha.  I had to keep trying to convince her to put more candy on.

I loved the CHristmas tree Katelyn made on her house of various green candies!  And then so cute, she made me a matching Christmas ornament out of clay.

Her chocolate roof was pretty impressive too, I think she used 40 kisses??

Whitney's was a very pretty house, more focused on cuteness than "put as much candy on as possible" and it turned out great.

Owen in his class Christmas program.

Eric's now yearly portraits of the little girls in front of the tree.

The ward Christmas party was an ugly sweater party and we went all out!  I bought the big kids sweaters and decorated ones for the little girls.  The Primary did a great job singing and Eric and I got to make that balloon arch to help with the setup.

2 days before Christmas, Eric took the kids skiing, Owen for his first time!  We had bought them snow gear on sale in the fall as a "Christmas present". They had a fun time and Owen did really great for his first time! Eric is a good teacher.

Christmas Eve we used our many Texas Roadhouse gift cards and it was fun, after the confusion during the wait.  Emma entertained us with her endless renditions of her favorite Christmas song, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. (in early December she asked me to sing her a song about Angels, and that's the one I picked.  After singing it to her daily for about 2 weeks she knew almost every word and would sing it constantly and adorably.  The best line is definitely "God and sinners reconciled", so cute to hear her sing such a big word!)

Then we headed home to act out the Nativity, watch The Christmas Story, and go to bed.

Good times were had by all, and we were ready for Christmas!