Sunday, December 28, 2008

Our December


As the Christmas festivities end, I thought I'd do a quick recap of our month.

December 1st--Luke climbed in the attic to pull out the Christmas decorations today! He's cold and dusty, but our house will soon be a beautiful winter wonderland!

December 2nd--Joshua is excited to go pick out a Christmas tree. In his own words, "We're going to go in Grandpa's truck to the forest and cut down a tree with a moving saw with an oval and a button."

December 3rd--The house is decorated (inside), the tree is up, and my Yankee Stadium ornament stands near the top of the tree--second only to the star in prominence!

December 7th--Luke says, "I'm too sick and it's too cold to hang Christmas lights." We're about the only house in the neighborhood without lights (and they never got put up this year), but we've got a homemade wreath on the door! It's not very purty, but it's festive.

December 8th--The Christmas cards have begun trickling in! This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas, though I wish more people still used snail mail (says the girl who posted her family letter on her blog...)

December 9th--Luke puts a vast majority of the human race to shame as he complains, "I didn't get anything done today. I slept in until 4:15 (a.m.)."

December 10th--Joshua comes home from preschool and announces that his class is going to go "killering."

December 11th--Since my Christmas shopping has been done for quite some time, I start wrapping gifts. The kids join me in the fun and waste only three rolls of scotch tape.

December 12th--Luke goes on an impromptu road trip with his brother and comes home quoting Napoleon Dynamite. This is all fine and dandy until Joshua starts commanding me to "Bow to your sensai. BOW to your sensai." He has also picked up the phrase, "Forget about it!"

December 13th--Ah, the ward Christmas party.

December 13th--No, seriously, Santa came to the ward Christmas party. When Joshua heard the jingle bells and reindeer hooves he ran wide-eyed up to the stage to be the first to see Santa. It was pure magic. Santa appeared, Joshua got in line, waited impatiently for his turn (I believe he was third...), and climbed right up on Santa's lap to tell him what he wanted. At this point, I became involved with the other kids and lost track of Joshua. However, a few minutes later my brother-in-law offered a report. He apparently saw a slumpy, slouchy Joshua walking slowly down the hall. When he said hello, Joshua dejectedly replied, "That wasn't Santa, it was just Bishop Doty."
December 13th--The magic of Christmas came and went for Joshua, courtesy of the ward Christmas party.

December 14th--Thanks to a weekend full of Christmas parties, our fridge, freezer, and counters are full of regifted leftovers. We resolve to eat it all and resume grocery shopping in 2009.

December 15th-24th--Giant snowstorm hits the northwest, and I am glad my Christmas shopping is done. Luke, however, braves the ice and snow to go to his favorite stores--Staples and Deseret Book--to finish his Christmas shopping. (Santa brought each of the kids a package of dry erase markers??) While we are homebound we also build a couple of snowmen (one in the church parking lot), make snow angels, eat snow cones, argue about whether or not school is cancelled (oh, the horror, Joshua didn't get to go "killering"), finish making Samantha's stocking, get sick, and enjoy time together relaxing.

December 23rd--Time for the family to go "killering" and deliver Christmas goodies. We got stuck in the snow despite our 4WD, and ended up devouring most of our goodies, which is probably just as well, since it was the sick, contagious children that prepared them. One bit of good news: In wrapping the plates of goodies, I used the last of the saran wrap from the ill-fated "decorate the honeymoon car" fiasco at Lindsey's 2005 wedding. Finally.

December 24th--Christmas Eve and it's attendant festivities were wonderful. The kids visited Great-grandma, and my sister's family came in to town. After dinner, we acted out the Nativity. Emmeline made a wonderful Mary, Joshua, a shepherd, Benjamin...well, I think he and Henry were Batman or Captain Underpants or something like that.

December 25th--Christmas was so much fun this year! The kids enjoyed opening gifts, and also watching Luke and I open gifts from them...which was adorable. Benjamin was the first awake, Joshua the last (see December 13). When we finished our morning, we headed to my parents' house just in time to talk to Zack (calling home from Brazil). I only got to speak with him for about 2 minutes, but it was wonderful to hear his voice. He's amazing. We enjoyed spending the rest of the day with family.
December 26-27th--I enjoyed a girls' weekend with my mom and sisters! How wonderfully relaxing, although I realized that I will never be fully relaxed in a spa environment...laser tag, yes, cucumber water, no...I don't think I'm normal...Anyway, it was so nice to talk with my mom and sisters, eat well (with no prep or clean up), and sleep well. Luke was so awesome to bring Samantha back and forth to the hotel so she could eat. We also went to see "7 Brides for 7 Brothers"! It was fantastic.

And, that catches us up! Happy New Year! I look forward to the joy, fun, and surprises that 200 will bring!

3 comments:

Kitchen Kamikaze said...

Glad your Christmas went so well. Tell Luke to learn how to drive in snow.

Lilianne said...

Kirstin - I love reading your blog. You crack me up! So sorry that Joshua had his magical Christmas foiled by the Bishop. So sad! So glad that you had a great Christmas!!

Toria said...

kirs, just getting caught up on your lives. I love that our 3rds share a birthday. so far so good with this little one. he's a dream so far- 10 days is nothing though right?
I laughed when i read your Christmas card/ snail mail comment. not sure if you were talking about us, and then you had me second guessing whether i emailed our card to you. I so hope i did. we loved getting your card.
Happy birthday season to your cute family!