Some Christmas Fun

Christmas this year sped by! It went so fast, I feel I need to document some of it so that I can remember some of the things that happened. We decorated shortly after we came home from Florida, which means we decorated about 2 weeks later than usual--that explains why I felt so rushed all season.

Evelyn was adorable. She is old enough to remember our Christmas traditions and she would remind me over and over not to forget until we completed them. First she did it with making snowflakes, then gingerbread houses, then gingerbread men, then our scripture memorization, and finally reading the "Jacob T. Marley" book. Due to her diligence we actually accomplished all these things this year.

Here is Evelyn playing Santa Claus. If you notice in the background are tons of paper snowflakes. We got a  little carried away with our snowflakes this year because we found patterns online and suddenly Evelyn was pleased with how her snowflakes were turning out.

 

Gingerbread houses are not my favorite Christmas tradition. I used to enjoy it more, but it is so much preparation, then work, then cleanup...and all the candy gets tainted by that poisonous eggy frosting... But this year Evelyn had a friend over to make it so she didn't have to make gingerbread houses with a whiney mommy. Here she is with Carmen Ramirez.

Gingerbread men I like to do a lot more because they don't have eggs! We love to decorate them with craisins and cream cheese frosting.

This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations by Simon Dewey. Evelyn was taking pictures of all our decorations and I thought it turned out nicely.

This year we made new ornaments for our tree. We took pictures of scenes of Christ's life and put them in plastic ornaments. Evelyn also took these pictures (she insisted I write that).

Because our birthdays are all in January, we decided to do something a little different for Christmas this year. We told Santa that we didn't want any individual gifts, but only gifts that would bring us closer as a family. Of course, right after we told him this, Evelyn saw a gigantic alligator toy at Smiths and decided that was ALL she wanted for Christmas!!! We reminded her that we already told Santa what we wanted and a giant alligator toy was not a family gift. So she decided to ask Grandma for it instead. (I found a T-shirt that I almost bought for her, it said: "Watch out Santa: Grandma's coming!)  Grandma decided she couldn't resist and brought it for our Adams' Family Christmas Party. Here is Evelyn beside her alligators and dressed in her new fuzzy green alligator jammies. She named her giant alligator "Jingle".

We also had an after Christmas Cheese party with Michael's bishopric and wives. It turned out very nicely: low stress and casual, I loved it! I've discovered appetizer parties are the very best!!