Christmas 2017 and the Rest of December

Merry Christmas (um, in February - sheesh)!  In the spirit of playing catch-up and not worrying about a perfectly organized or up to date blog in favor of at least documenting our experiences somewhere, I'm dumping almost all of our December festivities into one massive picture laden post!

We loved our Christmas cards this year!  It's the first time we've actually paid somebody else to do a family photo shoot for us and we loved the experience and the pictures she got of us and our girls.  I posted all of the rest of our family photos here on this post.

We did our annual pictures with Santa a little different this year and took them while we were in Texas for Kayli's wedding, which was fun because the Santa Claus at the Ft. Worth Stockyards wears cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, and a red cowboy suit. Clara told him that she wanted gold roller skates and Rose said she wanted an Elena of Avalor dress.  Neither of them got exactly what they wanted (although Clara is thrilled with her pink and white roller skates and Rose is getting her Elena dress as a present and wasn't at all upset about the dollhouse that she received instead).  

I wish I had taken pictures of our Christmas Eve fun, but we had the Mason family over with their two boys and little girl.  We did a hot chocolate bar, homemade eggnog, chips and dip, and fondue, then played songs on the handbells and acted out the Nativity.  

The girls also had fun playing with the Little People Nativity set and the toy train that Paul set up around the tree.

Our funny girls decided to sleep in on Christmas morning, of all mornings.  So Paul and I hung out just waiting for them to wake up, which they finally did around 7:30.  These pictures are all from a tripod that I set up with an interval timer so I didn't have to worry about taking photos while we enjoyed the gifts from Santa and opened presents that were under the tree.

Rose got a dollhouse, which has been a huge hit with both girls, actually, and they have spent hours playing with it already.  She also got a new soccer ball, a princess Sofia dress, a new bike helmet, a toy bow and arrow, a sequined purse from Clara, sparkly purple dress up shoes, lots of gaudy costume jewelry from dad, and a couple of new games and books (her favorite is a counting book called Ten Little Princesses).

Clara got a new bike (which we thought was going to be the big thing but has turned out to be of less interest than the roller skates at the moment), roller skates (the big hit), a new bike helmet, a couple of books and games (Monopoly Jr., Tenzi, and Ticket to Ride: First Journey have all been big hits), a new leotard, a Spirograph set, soccer goals, a baking set, and some new clothes including a quilted orange jacket that she absolutely LOVES because it is belted.

Oh, and we decided to give the girls an experience gift this year so I wrote a poem full of riddles and clues to help them (well, Clara, really) guess that we signed both of them up for ice skating lessons that start the second week in January.  I hope that they enjoy it and thought it would be fun for them to take skating lessons before the winter Olympics start in February to help them feel inspired even more by watching the figure skating competitions with me.

Paul got a bunch of new tools, some swimming goggles, and a remote control Camaro.

And I got a new wooden cake stand that Paul made for me, along with some other kitchen things.

It was quite a haul and we feel very fortunate to have received so many beautiful things this Christmas.

Flashing back to some of the fun we had earlier in December, we did our annual train ride on the Niles Canyon Train of Lights, which is still my favorite tradition.  I just love that experience and how fun it is, especially since our friends the Schaders and Fischlis from San Jose joined us again this year, along with a couple of other friends who haven't come before - the Pojdas and the McCleves.  We took up almost half a train car and the kids and adults alike had fun swapping seats the entire time, chatting and playing and catching up.  And of course, there's always hot chocolate to drink, cookies to be passsed around, and the visit from Santa and Mrs. Claus, which terrified Rose for some reason.

Afterwards we all went to dinner at Round Table Pizza again, because they have a huge eating area that is always open so we can take over a big section and continue the fun!

The girls dipped pretzel rods and decorated them with sprinkles to give as gifts to their classmates this year.  It was such a fun project and the treats turned out so great that I blogged about them on my food blog.

We did the annual FHE of picking out a Christmas tree, but if I'm being totally honest, I'm feeling ready to just get an artificial tree and not deal with the hassle and mess of a real tree any more.  Maybe it's because I was feeling a little extra Grinchy this Christmas season (I really don't know why, don't ask me the reason, lol.) 

Ward Christmas Party - the girls always have fun at church social functions like this and Rose was really cute with this Santa even if she didn't like the Santa on the Christmas train.  I love Clara's supportive arm around her.

Years ago, my sister Jessica started a tradition that we love and always look forward to, where she writes letters to each of her nieces from the North Pole.  She comes up with cute elf names and talks about the things they have done this year that were good and encourages them to continue to stay on the nice list - that sort of thing.  It's darling.

Except this year, on the day that Clara's letter came from Santa's Workshop, so did a warning letter for Paul from the Elf Review Committee, informing him that he had been naughty-listed.  Paul and I were absolutely dying over how funny it was, but when Clara read the letter out loud, she burst into tears, sobbing out "but you're the best dad EVER!!"  

She was so upset that Paul had gotten a letter telling him that he made the naughty list and was confused and worried for him.  She tried to figure out what could have happened and it was all we could do not to crack up in front of her when we asked her why she thought he could possibly have made the naughty list and she thought and said, "well, I guess he does say 'what the heck' a lot."  Seriously, we were just dying and love that girl so much.

So the next morning, she got up and went right to work at the kitchen table as I was getting breakfast ready.  She wrote this letter to Santa, asking him to reconsider his position and I love it so much.

Dear Santa,

My dad has been very good.  And I think he deserves to be on the nice list.  So maybe you should check your list again.

Things Paul did Right:

he goes to work, gives us snuggles, reads us books, let me get my ears pearst (pierced), (turn the page), goes on Daddy Daughter dates, does family home evening with me, wraps presents with me.  

Your friend,

Clara Nash, 6 1/2 year old

The End.

Seriously, cutest, sweetest, thing ever, right?  That very afternoon, a retraction letter came from the North Pole explaining there had been an error in the system and a letter for a naughty boy named Paul Mash had been sent to Paul Nash instead.  Rose also got a letter that afternoon and apparently what happened is Jessica mailed all 4 letters on the same day but somehow the one to Rose and the retraction letter got delivered a day after the one to Clara and the warning letter to Paul. 

I'm already positive this will be a story that we tell every year for the rest of our lives.

Other December happenings included celebrating Clara's half birthday with a half birthday cake (we gave the other half away to some friends).  

We also went to the Nutcracker ballet in San Francisco this year.  We went to dinner first at a German restaurant in the city, which is one of my favorite traditions.  Then we enjoyed the beautiful performance and the gorgeous music.  The girls did amazing, even though it was a very late night, and both of them absolutely loved the ballet.  

 

 

Clara had her class party at school.  All the first graders decorated graham cracker gingerbread houses together, which was great since it meant I didn't have to do a whole lot as the room mom for a party.  With everything else going on, I totally caved and just grabbed Costco pizzas for the class lunch part of the day, along with fruit, veggies, and those store-bought Lofthouse cookies.  Clara was appropriately aghast that I would actually bring store-bought cookies when I told her my plan and admonished me that "homemade is so much better Mom!".  But with the craziness of the season, and the fact that we had just gotten back from Texas, I just couldn't handle making cookies for 1st graders who I knew wouldn't care. 

Unfortunately, the class party was 2 days before Christmas and unbeknownst to the parents, the 1st grade teachers had given the kids a writing assignment to write letters to the North Pole.  Which were then sent to 8th graders who acted as elves and responded.  They were obviously told not to make any promises, but Clara was pretty much 100% positive after receiving her response that she was getting the gold roller skates that she apparently was dreaming of but had never thought to mention to mom or dad. 

It was too late to order anything from online, but Paul and I got lucky and spent our date night that evening doing last minute shopping and actually found a pair of skates in her size at Toys-R-Us (pink and white, not gold, unfortunately), so we were able to make that wish come true, but man alive, it was dicey for a while there. 

All of the rest of December seems to have blurred together, but we did a bunch of other traditional things like decorating gingerbread houses, making plates of goodies for neighbor gifts and sending and receiving Christmas cards.  

It was a hectic, crazy season and I'm hoping next year is a little more low key.  It's going to take better planning on my part.

It's not that I'm disassatisfied with our Christmas, it's just that I think we want to scale way back.  I want to have our address list done and ready to go right after Halloween so that we can just have the Christmas cards addressed and mailed directly from the printers instead of dealing with them when we are already busy.  I want less actual "stuff" under the tree and focus more on experiences for the girls and as a family.  

But most importantly, I want to do a better job of incorporating even more about the Savior in our actual celebrating.  We talked a lot about the real reason and meaning of Christmas with the girls during December, but I feel like we can do better at adding more of an element of service and giving.

I'm just glad we have another year to figure it out.