- Church highlight #1: The first talk was about keeping the spirit of Christmas with us year round. She mentioned setting personal and family service goals. Serving is the way to keep the spirit of Christmas with us year round! And setting service goals helps us accomplish that and be more Christlike. I love the idea of setting service goals.
- Church highlight #2: the closing song was Joy to the World, always my favorite Christmas hymn we sing at church. The Sunnyside Ward's tradition is to sing that hymn at the end of the Christmas sacrament meeting, but it's not just any old hymn arrangement. About 30 years ago, Sister L. WROTE this amazing complex piano/organ duet for Joy to the World, and she has played it with Sister R. every Christmas ever since. After they did a nice long beautiful loud duet, they kept on playing their complex notes at full volume and everyone joined in singing all of the verses with gusto. It was the best kind of loud, the only kind of loud that I ever really like: beautiful music-loud. It felt so joyful and the spirit was so strong! Praising through song is the purest form of worship. It was breathtaking.
We called family members and watched the old claymation Santa Claus is coming to town movie during the afternoon, and then the real magic happened: it started snowing!
Christmas Eve night, we had our newly traditional tamales (purchased from Garcia's earlier in the week), cranberry muffins, and a Costco salad. It was supposed to be a low-maintenance meal, but I had issues making the muffins and let's just say it was a messy long ordeal, like so many of my baking ventures before. I pulled through, though, and we had our tasty cranberry orange muffins at last. After dinner we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (Jeff's favorite), then had the kids act out the nativity while Jeff read excerpts from Luke 2. Then I coerced the crew into singing Away in a Manger (since the kids learned that one really well for primary). I played the piano and it was a nice "closing song" to our Christmas Eve evening. We herded the bouncy children off to bed in Jay's room for their yearly Christmas Eve sleepover, which Amber did her best to disrupt and disturb. They all eventually fell asleep at some point.
Jeff and I quickly wrapped the last few presents and then brought everything upstairs to fill the stockings. Filling stockings is my absolute favorite part about Christmas with kids! Jeff let me fill their stockings while he built their castle tents. Then we covertly stuffed each other's stockings while averting our eyes, and Jeff banished me downstairs so he could set out his gift to me. But first, we snuggled up on the couch in front of a crackling Netflix fire and soaked in the quiet magical Christmas Eve ambiance.
Before church I tried taking a cute picture of the kids...
Amber was playing with an old cell phone and looking very teenager-ish.
Amber brought an extra toy cell phone for Jay. I decided to move the crew outside in hopes of better light and attention.
Jumping Amber
More jumping.
Amber folded her little hands all on her own. Everyone looked and smiled all at once: a true Christmas miracle!
I took away the toy cell phone to try and get Amber to look at the camera, but she just started crying so we ended the 5 minute photo shoot.
After church Christmas Eve family photo.
Christmas Eve dinner: they just love it when I take pictures.
The nativity play: Rose was Mary, Amber was the angel, and Jay was Joseph and a shepherd.
The sleepover in Jay's room.
(Amber was banished to the floor)
Each kid got a castle tent. Rose had one a few years ago that was loved to death, and the kids still talked about it so it was a fun surprise for them each to have their own castle tent. Our little family room was pretty crowded!
Ambience: stuffed stockings, wrapped gifts, lit tree, picture cards on a ribbon, and a larger than life Netflix fire.
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