Christmas

Christmas was fantastic this year. I bought my whole family tickets to see A Christmas Story at the Scera; however, the night of the play was our very first day out of quarantine. Derek wasn’t feeling up for it and it was actually kind of late for the boys, so I gave their tickets to Karlee, Tanner and Karlee’s Mom instead as a Christmas present and then Liv and I went with them. 

 As room Mom, I volunteered to help the boys’ teacher put together a Christmas party that she had to run since parents aren’t really allowed in the classrooms much this year. I sent in Bingo, and a little craft where you wrap yarn around a cardboard triangle to make a Christmas tree, and we sent in the Jingle Book with the dark that barks to certain points in the story. Sounds like all the kids loved it. Liv and Hannah (my babysitter for the kids while I work) single handedly made all the homemade treats we brought around to neighbors this year one day I was working.  I had bought ingredients and set out my recipes and I came home to a tray of fudge and caramels. 

 Liv told me weeks in advance that she really wanted to give all her closest friends Christmas presents this year. She decided she really wanted to get them all Christmas socks. So we went shopping one day before Christmas and picked out socks. The only hard thing is that all Liv’s closest friends are scattered all about. So we them spent the day driving from Orem to Lindon to Alpine and then to American Fork to deliver socks. We ended at Hallie’s house and then Liv stayed and played with Hallie for a good long while and had a blast. 

 We also a set up a day for Kenadie and Charlie to come play so Liv could give Kenadie her socks. Liv decided for her voice recital this December she wanted to sing a duet with Wren: When Christmas Comes to Town from the Polar Express. They did a great job and were darling singing in their black and red Christmas pjs. 

 For Christmas Eve we did not have our traditional crab feast because D and I didn’t have the stomachs for it after COVID. But, we ate the ham Steve and Diane had given us and lit a candle. Set out the fancy glasses and opened a bottle of sparkling cider (a perfect neighbor gift we had received). 

 As we ate dinner we went around the table and everyone said something they liked about each person at the table. It was fantastic. And London just laid under the table waiting for something to fall on the floor.

 We had let the kids open the presenting from grandparents are they arrived. Steve and Diane gave the boys a remote control car they were pretty thrilled with and Liv some baking and cake decorating supplies which she has already put to use several time. Poppi and Nana sent out the boys these Segway drift. Almost like a hoverboard but the feet are separated. They love them and spent tons of time riding them around the garage. And they sent out Liv ear pods just like she wanted. Tyler Thorsted found us a bunch of new karyoke CDs at DI. One was a Christmas one so Liv and Derek and some of Liv’s friends all had a good time singing those. We let the kids open their presents from us and Babi and Papou on Christmas Eve. Camden was really quite thrilled with the ant farm they sent him. And Carter read the whole book that came with it about ants cover to cover. 

 This was the gift the chose to bring to their show n tell at school after Christmas and the continue to watch the ants in the ant farm with fascination.  Derek and I gave all the kids ski school through Foothill and tickets to the youth Hale Center theater Orem shows. Those were the big gifts. Derek bought himself a smoker and opened it and started using it earlier in the month as soon as it arrived. Liv was thrilled to open the COPA jacket with her name embroidered on it that she has been begging for for months. Then, all the kids wrote a little letter for Santa. 

 Camden told Santa to imagine if he got COVID and how that would be really bad. 

 They set out cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer and carrot cake for Mrs. Clause.

 And she left a blank sheet of paper for Santa to write back on. 

 Christmas morning started at 6am with Camden bawling that Santa didn’t bring him one thing on his list that he asked for. Which—was true--dang it! He asked for interesting and hard to find things like some shocker toy. I put him back to bad rubbing his back as he sniffled. Liv then came in at 7:30 screaming with delight that Santa had brought her a Zac Efron poster!!! So weird that she was so excited about that. 

 Carter got a fire house lego set just like he asked for and Camden decided he would have a good attitude about the lego set Santa brought for him as well. Our plan had been to drive down to see Babi and Papou and Uncle Mitchell after opening the Christmas morning stuff, but I had come down with strep throat and Babi ad Papou didn’t want us to bring it to them. The kids were sad, but we made arrangements to go see them New Years Eve weekend instead. The biggest problem with not going down was that I hadn’t made any plans for Christmas dinner and had kind of run down the fridge. We had decided we would make up some frozen burgers for dinner, but them didn’t feel super energetic to do it. Derek noticed that Denny’s happened to be open, so we asked the kids whether they would rather have burgers or Denny’s and they all excited decided on Denny’s. So we ate Christmas dinner at Denny’s this year. Unbeknownst to us, I guess kids eat free every evening (including Christmas) as Denny’s…so that was a cheap Christmas Dinner (well except Derek left a hefty tip for our waitress)! It was actually quite enjoyable and everyone really enjoyed their food. All around a great Christmas this year (except for me getting strep throat that wasn’t super fun—but no one else ended up getting it, so I consider that a blessing).