Christmas 2019

Christmas with Mimi and Papa

Anderson Family party:

We went to the Anderson Christmas party. We fill up an entire gym practically so it was fun to see all the cousins running around playing together. I wish we lived closer to more of them but it is nice to see everyone at least once a year.

We ate soup, salads, and had desserts, and then played the traditional white elephant game. Cameron got the luckiest with a huge nerf gun. I got an LED toilet light....so there. ;) It was a fun time. By now, everyone in my family has caught some of the bug going around and we are going on fumes. But we pushed through and avoided any babies...well except our own.

Christmas Holidays
On Christmas Eve Eve, we invited Johnny and Isobel and their family and David, my cousin and his son, Landon, to come over for enchiladas. We do them a bit different with El Pato sauce and a whole bunch of yummy. It didn't taste quite like Grandma Flake's recipe but they turned out pretty good.

Of course the kids only ate the hard tortillas and it reminded me of the days I hated eating enchiladas whenever we went to Arizona. Now I would give anything to have Grandma Flake make me a big stack!

Afterwards, we started a new tradition. It's an Icelandic tradition, called Jolabokaflod, or flood of books. Everyone gets to open a book and have some chocolate while they eat. It was a big hit and we will be repeating it. 

Christmas Eve

This is a special night for my family filled with traditions. We only eat at a Chinese restaurant...or recently Tai restaurant because the food is so much better. We invited Isobel and Johnny to come with us and it was a fun, yummy time.

At the end of the evening we do what is called "Jesus presents". This is where you write down some goals of how you are going to grow closer to Christ in the next year. I attached my three goals so you could see an example.

Then you receive a present that is spiritual in nature. New scriptures, or scripture markers, temple clothes, books, etc. This year all of our presents focused on the Book of Mormon since we are studying it next year. We got a few games and books focused on learning deeper. Almost all of the books and the games came from the DI so it was exciting to find some things that we needed for not that much. :)

We are excited to find ways to follow the Savior more in the next year. I am so grateful for Him and all He is and does for me personally. 

This is the first year we did jammies. It was fun and although we look cute I dunno if it will be an every year tradition. But it was fun for this year.

We prepared snacks for Santa and his reindeer and then sent the little ones to bed so we could...fix the sink. Yes we found a leak under the sink and or was the most stressful thing ever. I'm glad my dad has the skills and Fred had the will.

Santa did his bidding just in the Nick of time, and we all fell in bed very exhausted but exited for the next day.

Christmas Day
The kids woke up before us. Shocker! But we were all up and going by 7:30. The boys were more interested in Emmy's mini house than their Lego storage shelves. ;) We opened stockings and went straight into presents. Fred got a Shark steam vacuum for our wood floors, and we all got sleeping bags, a tent, and a wagon to go camping together next summer.

We loved watching others open the presents we had worked so hard to find. We each got things we loved and it was a fun celebration of each other. But I have to be honest, this is my least favorite part of the day. I can't wait for the day when our Christmases are less commercial and more about the Savior. We smiled and tried to enjoy the loud insanity.

Later, we went to Isobel's baptism. We've been a special part of teaching her the gospel and it was a great way to celebrate Christ. 

We had the missionaries over for dinner, no matter how long that turkey took to bake and spent the evening playing with toys and watching movies.

After Christmas Party
We had many lazy days after Christmas to recover. In fact, the day after Christmas my mom and I were bed/couch ridden because life just kicked the party right out of us. We played, we ate, we slept, we ate at Cafe Rio, and saw Frozen 2. It was fabulous and restful and just what we needed after a hectic season. Mimi and Papa left as quick as they came and we went back to our normal lives.