Christmas Memories.

My goal with this whole blogging thing is to eventually publish our blog into a yearly family memory book. (If anyone has had experience with this please let me know.) So for posterity sake, and to prove to my boys one day that they did have a fabulous, happy childhood if need be, I thought I better write a little about our Christmas. At least it isn't February yet right?

Christmas, I love Christmas. I love everything about it from getting out the decorations, to choosing the perfect Christmas tree, to reading our Christmas stories. I love having friend get togethers...I love the magic that is in the air, and the twinkle in my kids eyes. I love the songs, the movies and the food. I love finding that perfect gift. I love doing little craft things with my kids that always turn out looking different than envisioned. I love waiting for the snow to come and then playing like crazy in it. I love sitting curled up next to Mike on our couch at night, when all is quiet and looking at our beautiful tree all lit up. Christmas is wonderful, and this years was one of the best. We decided to stay here for Christmas. It was a good decision. Throughout the month of December we tried to do special little things each day to make it a fun season. Since living here, one of our favorite things we do happens the first weekend in December. It sets the season off right and we love the little evangelical experience it is. Here is a summary of the event.

A group of Churches here in town pull together to put on "Bethlehem Revisited." This is such an awesome live nativity. It is set up on a farm about 5 miles west of town. You meet at the little community center near the farm and each person receives a passport ticket (This allows you to get past the Roman Guards who are waiting for taxpayers to come.). When it is your groups turn, you board a bus, and your guide, dressed in time appropriate clothing, rides with you to the farm. However it no longer is a farm. Bonfires and lit torches await you. As a group you hike up a hill, and there start your journey to Bethlehem. Along the way you meet about four Old Testament Prophets. Each prophet has a small warm fire by him, and they stop the travelers and prophesy about Christ's birth. After you walk past all the prophets, you eventually make it to a little open shed. Here you see a beautiful young Mary and watch as the angel comes to tell her that see has been chosen to be the mother of Jesus. Next stop is to Joseph who we see instructed by the angel to take Mary as his wife. Soon Roman Guards come riding up on horses, declaring that everyone needs to be taxed, so we follow Joseph and Mary who is now on a donkey to Bethlehem. Here us travelers are met at the gate by guards, who check and take our passports. We walk with our guide along the busy market streets of Bethlehem that are filled with peddlers trying to sell their goods, jewels, bread, goats, ropes, fish etc... Once you make it past the noisy crowd, you see Joseph and Mary stop at an inn and were they are told there is no room for. They leave, and we continue to walk across a cold open field. Along the way people join our group and quietly sing Christmas carols. We eventually make it to a sheep pastures, where shepherds are gathered together around a fire watching over their live sheep. Suddenly from high on a hill right by us an Angel appears and declares the good news to the Shepperd's. Soon a heavenly host is gathered around the first angel and we are treated to a beautiful rendition of "Angels We Have Heard On High." We then leave the field and walk back down another hill to a stable, in it we find Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, and real cows and sheep that the kids can touch. We all sing "Away in a Manger" and then walk off again into the night. You think this experience would be over, but we come next to the Temple were you meet Zacharias and Anna the Prophetess. Here you watch as Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph come to the temple, and these prophets for tell of Christ's life. We walk on, and while we walk we are told about Christ's life and mission. We eventually come to a cross and the story of the Crucifixion is told. We end, however, at an open tomb (an underground tornado shelter). Our guide then bears testimony of Christ and ends with a prayer. All in all we probably walk about 1/2 -3/4 a mile through the Christmas story. We load the buses and head back to the community center for Hot Chocolate and Cookies.

This has been such a fun family tradition. We love it and look forward to it every year. Alas, we have no pictures of the event, but here are a few pictures of some other fun seasonal memories.

Boys dancing on the decorated stage in the Mall on a quiet week night.

Each weekend night throughout December the food pantry here (The Bread Basket), gives free wagon rides down beautiful Poyntz Ave. All they ask is for a canned food donation per person. This was pretty fun. The horses were these big black Clydesdale's, each horse was draped in red bows and jingle bells. The only drawback, was it was about 18 degrees outside.

Staying warm on a magical two horse open wagon.

My mom sent us the 12 days of Christmas this year. Each morning the boys would wake up so excited to run down the stairs and see what that day's gift was. Each day was such a fun surprise.

(The Night of the Big Delivery)

One of my favorite things this year was the opportunity we had to help out a couple of families. For FHE we read the story in the December Friend about the "Secret Giver." This was all the inspiration our boys needed. They were so excited about it. We asked our RS President if there was a family or two we could help out. The night we went shopping, was filled with anticipation. However, as we were looking at some serious cool boy toys Will looked up at me and with such concern and tears in his eyes said, "But Mom, I forgot to bring my lemonade money." (We don't pay our kids anything, this was money $2.50 each that they had earned working hard this summer at a lemonade stand they set up with their cousin's at Mawgas house.) That moment was worth it to me, I gathered him up and tried to reassure him that it was ok and that dad luckily remembered his wallet. I love moments like this when you see what good hearts your kids have. Our boys had so much fun picking out gifts. The night of the delivery was awesome. Will came down dressed in all the darkest clothes he owned. The drop offs were skillfully planned stealth moments of speed and muffled giggles. I hope they always remember this moment.

We were blessed to have fun snow before Christmas. Here are the boys making tunnels through a big pile. We started a new tradition this year thanks to a 12 day gift my mom sent. We have a fun snowman cookie jar now, and on the first good day of snow we write the date under the cookie jar and make cookies together to celebrate.

Christmas night, we put on our own little nativity. You have to be creative when there are only four of you. Will chose our parts. He was a Shepard, Joseph, and the inn keeper. Isaac was baby Jesus, and a Shepard. (In order to play his role as Baby Jesus well, Ike found the little cap they put on his newborn head 3 years ago, and was pretty determined to wear it!) I was Mary and the Angel, and Mike was the narrator and a Shepard. We had to be ready to go for our dual action acting.

Christmas Eve, sitting by our tree in our new jammie's. I love Christmas Eve. We open up new P.Js and then sit around and string popcorn for our tree as we listen to a wonderful, tender Christmas story my Grandpa tells each year.

Our Traditional Christmas Eve Ham dinner. I don't think my boys quite appreciate it as much as I do. For the amount of planning and preparation that goes into it, I think it should be required that they stay at the table and admire the meal longer than 10 minutes.

Christmas morning, after we see what Santa left, we have a traditional Crepe breakfast. Each year that we have stayed home we have been able to have the missionaries come to breakfast with us. It was so fun to have the Elders this Christmas morning. They are so much fun, and we have loved getting to know them and having them in our home. Christmas morning they came with matching ties on. And lucky for them, Santa must have known they were coming to our house, because he left them a little something here as well. Our boys are convinced Santa is the Smartest Individual Alive.

Perhaps my favorite decoration of the year. While I was gone with the YW on our overnighter, the boys made this fireplace for us complete with stockings. How fun is that. Notice there are 5 socks, hmmm.

(The real stockings we use are Mike's old Rugby socks that he himself embroidered our names into, They are a hoot and quite fancy!)