Holiday Season

The holiday season always starts with lights for us. I usually wait until Dec 1 before holiday decor comes out, but this year Thanksgiving was a little early, and the kids needed some projects to keep them busy on their week off. (I called some pros, but they wanted $1200 to light the roof outline and flowerbed!!) I did the flower bed lights (Phase 1, sore fingers) and most of the tree wrapping (Phase 4), but the kids did most of the rest (Phase 2 = door garland, wreath, potted plants, and a couple of shrubs, Phase 3 = rest of the shrubs). We did phases because I finally (for our third Christmas here) found our Idaho container of lights stashed behind boxes in the back of the attic! It was a mini Christmas in itself, and they nearly all still worked!

The next big holiday component is the music! We started with our church's Messiah concert, which is always a beautiful way to kick off the season. 

Then we followed it up with a junior high orchestra concert. Owen is the cello to the farthest right this time. (He says they just pick wherever they want to sit. No chair tests yet!) Their entire concert can be heard here; Owen is in FYO (First Year Orchestra), which played Jingle Bells, Jolly Old St. Nick, and Good King Wenceslas (below).

And to round out the week, we had a date night at a Carols and Keyboards concert with our Life Group. There were 4 grand pianos on stage, dueling (quadueling?) dramatically, as well as professional soloists and a full backup choir. Quite a production for free!

We also got music from a drive-thru light show, but I'll spare you the video. The kids enjoyed the show through the sun roof.

Christmas sweets were pared down this year, just for an exchange with our neighbors. Dipped pretzels for the win! Kids did these all by themselves too - an assembly line with a dipper and a sprinkler, and Christmas tunes blaring for the festive atmosphere.

And we enjoy our Christmas card wall every year through most of January.

The kids were invited to participate at the Christmas Eve childrens' service. Hadley was an Angel again, though now as a reader, and Owen reprised his role as Joseph, this time with no lines. One rehearsal and one show = not too shabby. 

Hadley practiced her lines at home, and we had a few discussions around her insistence to say "BethleHAM", instead of "BethleHEM." During the show, you'll notice her look up at us as she decides to go with "HEM" after all. :)

We hadn't been to this service before, because it's at 3 pm and, as you can tell, full of young families. The littler kids were the stable animals. We got to watch a few of the boys pummel each other with their horse/cow heads, while their backends thrashed the poor poinsettias during the production. That and the star falling off the stable were the most memorable parts of the Christmas story this year. At least we got to sing the classics!

Finally, it was Christmas Day!! Did I mention that the kids put up the tree and decorated it too? Gosh, they did such a great job this year bringing us the Christmas spirit!

Lastly, some of our favorite gifts: books for Hadley, Legos for Owen, and a homemade (by Hadley) book of word searches (including one with all 50 states!) for Mom and Dad.

We kept it kind of small this year, because there was one big present at the end. I set up a scavenger hunt with rhyming clues and 5 steps to hidden presents/clues: What (Stitch card for a family trip), How (Star Wars ship for a plane), Who (Lego Mom and kids (boy with lightsaber, girl with wand) in a Minnie container), When (SW calendar with trip marked for spring break), Where (SW/Harry Potter books for where these two worlds meet = DisneyWorld!!). They did not understand the scavenger hunt clues, other than being clues for the next thing to find. And did not really understand the present until we talked about it afterward. The scavenger hunt was still fun!