Christmas prep

We set up our three Christmas trees this year. But we can't find pictures of any but the boring one in the family room.

Ryan got to put the star on the main tree in the front room, and we always try to document that so the kids don't fight over whose turn it is to put the star on. Oh well. Next year it's Megan's turn. :) The kids helped decorate the house this year (after I decorated for both Halloween and Thanksgiving while they were at school and Megan got mad at me for not letting her help). It did make decorating a bit faster, even if they didn't do it all "right" (like I normally do). But good enough is good enough.

We had Christmas concerts to attend. Rachel's middle school concert was pretty good and less painful than I had anticipated.

Rachel did great on percussion. And the songs were enjoyable and even though it was combined with the orchestra it wasn't as long as I had anticipated.

Annie's chorus got to perform at Holidays on Houghton and they did a great job.

The kids, of course, also had a lot of fun running around the rest of the booths and offerings of the event. They jumped on the jumping castle, told Santa what they wanted for Christmas, got their faces painted, ate free pizza and Eegees and sub sandwiches.

In my extra shopping trips to get ready for Christmas I would stop at Goodwill when I drove past and found some good ugly Christmas sweaters and Christmas shirts. The best find of all was this Bob Ross Christmas shirt that says Happy Little Trees:

Grandma had a craft day where the kids made ornaments. We have so many ornaments now.

We weren't as involved in Light the World this year as we have been in years past as far as actually planned events go. I don't think we ever got around to chalking our neighbors' driveways, which is one of the kids' favorite activities. We mostly stuck to smaller things, like the suggestions to smile at people you see, or write a note to someone, etc. We did, however, continue our tradition of doing a sock drive at school. With cousins at the school, too, we involved them, so instead of 3 classes last year (since Megan was still in preschool), we had 8 classes (Sammy's preschool did participate). With all the extra participants we reached new heights, collecting 1000 socks (500 pair) getting close to our previous running total, which I think was around 1400.

I always think it's cool to see how much difference a little effort can make (really, very little--taking boxes to the school and sending home a flier). And I love that my kids get to be a part of it and hopefully realize that one person can help make a big difference in the world.

There were lots of decorating activities going on during the month...
At young women they decorated Christmas cookies:

Megan's class decorated gingerbread houses:

Ryan's class decorated gingerbread houses:

And Annie and Eloise's class made winter wonderlands:

When Grandma Campbell was visiting she took the kids to the store and they each chose fabric they liked and she sewed them each a pillow of their own. They love them and use them for movie nights and sleepovers at Grandma Knight's house, and any old time. 

Annie's chorus had another performance, this time at their school just before school started one morning.

It was so cold. Definitely one of those days that reminded me how thankful I am to live where we live. I can barely handle the 30's with a little wind. Snow and negative temperatures would do me in.

Finally school wrapped up with a half day that last day. We took the kids down to drop off the socks from our sock drive, then met Peyton and McKenzie at a park to play for a while before heading home with them coming out to Grandma and Grandpa's for a sleepover. It happened to be our ward Christmas party that night, too, so we all had more fun in store. 

Megan had been upset that when she talked to Santa at Holidays on Houghton she didn't get to sit on his lap (the first year she's even been willing to). So she was happy to go see Santa before the party officially started and to actually sit on his lap. 

The kids wanted a picture with the nativity scene at the entry way.

The young women (including Rachel) helped serve dinner and had a good time doing that.

There was a relatively short musical program, and the primary (or what kids were left at that point of the night) went up and sang before we headed home.

That next Monday we had planned to go to Winterhaven to see all the lights. Megan had missed a couple days of school the week before for a fever and cold, then Annie came down with the same thing that Monday, and Megan was developing an ear infection at that point (she was prescribed antibiotics the next day for a double ear infection) so I stayed home with those two while the rest of the clan headed to Winterhaven.

I'm sure they had a good time all together and with all the magical lights.

The three of us who stayed home went on our own light-viewing adventure and found some pretty cool light setups that we looked at from the comfort (and warmth) of our own car.