Merry Christmas! (From an April Fool?)

There's a perfectly good explanation for why it has taken me so long to post our Christmastime activities. I am a big procrastinator! But, for a while I had another good reason. Our computer was dying and trying to use iPhoto was excruciatingly painful. Everything would freeze and then a bunch of our photos seemed to suddenly be gone. (Thankfully they weren't and Ross managed to back them all up!) It was too much of a hassle to try and import, so I waited until the tax return came and we were able to buy a new Mac. Hooray!
But, yeah, pretty much after we got it, I've just been slow about finishing this post. Oh well. I'm sure I'll get over this procrastination weakness I have soon. I'll do it tomorrow? :o)
So, now presenting the official post. Be excited! Here it goes:

A few days after we got back from Utah (see here), we went up to my parents house to find our Christmas tree. When I was little we would have winter picnics as a family while my dad found us the perfect tree. Sledding and hot chocolate and fun times. The older I got, the less that happened, so it had been a super long time since I'd had anything at all to do with choosing a Christmas tree.
When we got to my parents house, however, I decided I wanted to go with Ross while my folks were nice enough to watch the kiddoes. My dad hooked me up with his gators so that I didn't soak my jeans in the snow and we were off. (Thanks, Dad.)

We drove up to some property my dad owns and walked around for 20-25 minutes looking. I had my silly iPod on and was perfectly content. I probably drove Ross a little crazy, though, as I fussed over which tree looked the fullest, least diseased, the right height, and all around suitable for our home. I'm just sure he enjoyed getting to spend some alone time with me however.

Ta-Da! Here it is, folks!

And down it comes!

Yes, I decided I needed to pose with it.

Do I look like I'm about to rob a bank with my Christmas tree?

We had our ward Christmas party that night. It's always a fun time. I especially love the fact that the kids get their visit with Santa Claus in.

Samantha giving Santa her wish list

Becky wondering who this guy in the red suit is...

Luke and Santa (It is so hard to get my kids to look at the camera!)

Logan and Santa bonding over presents

As ususal, during clean-up, the basketballs came out and the boys were playing around. Somehow, Logan convinced the big boys that he needed to make a basket, so here he is on Elder Heywood as they both attempt to make the shot.

Going up

Standing on the missionary's face to get some height. (Poor guy had a big red mark from Logan's shoes!)

Taking the shot...

Success! Or something like it. :o)

We decorated our tree the next day. A couple of years ago we somehow never finished putting all the ornaments on, so I've been trying to avoid that. We really enjoy it. Ross isn't a fan of having to fuss with the getting the tree in the stand and stringing the lights up, but he's a good sport about decorating.

Lifting Logan to a tall branch

Samantha's silly grin

The finished product! Not fancy, but oh-so-homey and sweet.

As a little girl, I loved to turn all of the lights off and just gaze at the twinkly tree.

That night as we decorated, we got a knock on the door. We opened it to see no one standing there, but a box was left on our front step. It was a gingerbread house! I was excited because I hadn't yet purchased one like I'd intended to. It was darling and we were excited that someone was nice enough to secretly get one for our family.

Then on further inspection, I realized there was more to it than just the gingerbread house. The card attached read: "On the first day of Christmas my Secret Santa left for me ONE gingerbread house with a little tree!"

I looked at Ross, feeling a little stunned. This wasn't just a one time delivery. Someone had chosen our family to do the "12 Days of Christmas" to. I think I practically started bawling. For 12 years, from the time I was 9 years old, my family did the "12 Days" at Christmastime to a family. Oh, the fun we had! My brothers would stake out the family's house and we'd dress up in black, sometimes even using hunting make-up to darken our faces, so that we could be as sneaky as possible as we delivered each day's present. One night, my brother Jeff even used my dad's long surveying measuring pole, slipping the grocery sack holding the gift onto the end. He and my brother Ryan hid behind the neighbor's fence, slid the pole through a hole until it reached the family's side door, gently dropped the sack, lifted the pole to ring the doorbell, then yanked it back as fast as they could before the family came to the door. No footprints in the snow and they got to watch the whole thing! Clever.

Another year, we did the family of Jeff's best friend. He figured it out at the very end and had all his little brothers staked out around their yard including their roof, I think, as we went to drop off the last gift. I remember watching Ryan struggle with them as the tried to yank off his ski mask.

We have many other fond memories of bringing those families a little extra Christmas cheer. I'd really love to start listing them all, but I'll spare you.

To get to my point, the fact that someone else had chosen my little family to do this to really meant a lot to me because of the tradition I participated in growing up. My family would always deliver the last gift on Christmas Eve, sometimes teasing the family that we were doing it for someone else, and occasionally arguing that it wasn't us (it always seemed to be the 10 year old sons that did that...), and finally revealing that we'd done it and swearing them to secrecy.
Our "Secret Santas" didn't reveal their identity, nor did I expect them to, truthfully. We just waited every evening for a little package to arrive and my small kids were always so excited for it to come! It truly made the Christmas season so memorable and special for us. Thank you to our Secret Santa, whoever you are!!!

ONE Gingerbread House

TWO Decks of Cards (Crazy Eights and Old Maid)

THREE Packs of Gum (Mmmm...Strawberry Trident)

FOUR Colors of Clay

FIVE Pretzels with Cheese packs

SIX Punch Balloons

SEVEN Hot Cocoa packets (And a few Andes Mints too!)

EIGHT Boxes of Cereal

NINE Christmas Tree Peeps

TEN Candy Canes

ELEVEN Christmas Pencils

TWELVE Cinnamon Rolls

Our 12 Days of Christmas. It was so wonderful!!!!!!!!

We had a great time decorating the gingerbread house. I bought one last year, but we didn't get it put together and it ended up being a Valentine's Day house! So obviously since we got it done in December this year, I'm getting better at the not procrastinating so much thing. Hooray!
These pics are cutest of the kids, but somehow I ended up in a bunch of them, wearing the ribbon off the gingerbread house box in my hair, no less. Goofy me. Just look at my children instead. ;o)

Love the hand on the face and those smiles

Cuddling up to say "Cheese!"

I love how you can see how few teeth she had. A whopping 12!

I'm only including this shot because it shows that we were actually working on the house that night!

Now for you viewing enjoyment, here's a couple pictures of our little squirrel visitor. He decided to hang out in our window well one day. We miss him.

Hello, Mr. Nutty!

So long!

On the 18th, we attended Samantha's program at Smith School. Um, I'm gonna try really hard to be nice about this, but it may not work. Unfortunately, this year's program was not up to the level that it has been for the last 24 years. Mrs. Barbara Berg, the music teacher who came to Smith when I was in 3rd grade there, is on her way toward retirement and only teaches one class right now. The new teacher has really, really big shoes to fill. Mrs. Berg rotated 6 Christmas stories every year. Things like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "Mickey's Christmas Carol", "Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus", and others. She always included Hanukkah and sometimes Kwanza songs too. She taught songs to about 10 different classes, assigned the big kids to set decoration, stage managers, and gave individual parts to kids that tried out. Yes, it's only elementary school, but it was on their level and the kids did a great job handling it all! Mrs. Berg would be playing the piano with one hand, directing the actions to the songs that classes come in to sing, and be doing 40 other things all at once. SHE IS AMAZING! She did other plays and "Share Days" (talent shows) during the rest of the year as well. (Pete's Dragon my 4th grade year.) When I transferred to Central School for 5th grade, the Christmas Program was not quite the same.
This year, it was a "Winter Program". The kids barely did actions to songs. None of them were along the spiritual side of Christmas. Hanukkah and Kwanza were still included, however. Weird.
The kindergarten kids didn't even sing one of their numbers. It was kind of a chant. The 4th and 5th graders had been learning guitar chords. There was not one, but about FOUR performances of the SAME song (Not a Christmas or even "winter" song, mind you.) in supposedly different styles. I think there was a recording going of the actual song and the kids were just strumming the one or two chords they'd learned.
The lights in the gymnasium weren't even turned down as they normally are. No spotlights. No grand finale. It was a let down. I feel bad for the new teacher because all the parents I've talked to had the same frustrations. (Seriously, I don't have anything against her personally. She just must not have known the high standard this school is used to!) Some of the students even said the same thing to me. It was like the kids just got up and showed a few things they'd been learning in music. Oh well. Hopefully next year will be better.

My Samantha, however, did a good job singing what she was supposed to. The lights and motion and large crowd have been too much for her to handle in years past. She did just wonderfully this year and is growing up!

It's a cruddy quality pic, but this is Samantha's class on the risers.

Here's our pretty girl on her way out of the gym with her class.

I put Samantha's hair up in pink foam curlers the night before the Sunday before Christmas. It was a fun and silly "project" and she was nervous about sleeping on them, but she did look darling anyway.

The front view

The back view

Ross works as the financial clerk in our ward at church, so for the past four years, it's just me bringing the kids home from church while he stays for a while to take care of tithing. That Sunday I wanted to get pictures of the kids in their fancy Christmas duds. It's always an adventure to try and get the shots I want. Here's the results:

Sweet Samantha

I told her to tell me a joke and then tried to catch the laugh.

Logan Boy

I did the same joke trick with him. Doesn't this picture make YOU want to laugh?

Cute Lukey

Darling smiler

Rebecca in her darling dress. I bought it the year before on sale because I loved it so much. I was very excited to finally put her in it! (Note the matching pink sparkly shoes.)

My goofy boys. Logan's face isn't actually dirty. He was going through a licking his lips stage and had some scabs from it. :o(

Brotherly love

Logan and Rebecca posing for me

This was my attempt to get a photo with all four of them in it. Yeah, it didn't work out...

And this was the best shot I could get of the other three instead.

We've started a tradition in our family without really meaning to. I've got picky eaters (who are getting SO much better thanks to Samantha's successful eating steps that she got in Occupational Therapy. WOO-HOO!), so we decided last year to have tacos for Christmas Eve dinner thinking that the kids would eat that well. My husband decided he liked that plan for every year. So I guess for a while at least we'll be doing Taco Night on December 24th. It's all good. I'm planning on learning how to make empanadas or something cool like that to add to the meal.

I have no style, but I attempted to class up my table just a little. This year I put our Christmas centerpiece on the table along with a table cloth and I put the cranberry juice in a glass pitcher. It helped. I'm sure I'll get better as the years go by, but somehow in my heart I know I'll never pull together a table in the same amazing way that my former roommate Nissa-Lynn can. Go here and see what she did for her dinner group at Valentine's Day. AMAZING! And go here to see what she did just for her kids that day! No, seriously, go look. It's unbelievably fabulous!

Our Christmas Taco Feast! (Apparently I'm just a floating head...)

We drove out to our Stake Center to see the Live Nativity that is presented every year and to drop off our cans of food to the Food Share truck. The neighborhood by the church is the only one in Helena where almost all of the houses decorate with lights and other props. There's luminaries lining the street and lots of traffic. It's fun to see the creativity of others and I love talking to my kids about Christ's Birth as we drive by the Nativity.

Silent Night

We had my brother Ken's family for Christmas this year, so we drove to their house on our way home. My parents happened to be there too. We gave them their presents and looked at all their decorations I hadn't seen and talked and shared a little family love.

Samantha, Caleb, and Spencer

My parents came home with us and dropped off some presents for us and took this photo for us.

Merry Christmas 2009!

While they were there, we got to share with them the amazing thing that happened to us that day. We were just hanging out at home in the middle of the day when there was a knock on the door. Ross answered it and I could see from the top of our stairs that it was a guy neither of us knew in a Santa hat. He said, "Merry Christmas!!!" and handed Ross a great big basket wrapped in red plastic paper. Dumbfounded, Ross managed to say thanks and then looked up at me. I shrugged and we put the package on the coffee table. We opened it and found tons of wrapped gifts inside. There was three per kid. They were just labled "Girl, 7", "Boy, 5", "Boy, 3" and "Girl, 1". We suspected that perhaps someone had put our family on an Angel tree maybe? We really don't know. I'm sure so many other families are worse off than us. Work has been really slow at my dad's office, but we were doing okay, I guess. Whoever did this for us knew us on some level it seemed though. There was also a gift bag FULL of gift certificates to restaurants, stores, the local carousel, and even an evelope labeled "Babysitting Money". It was so extremely generous and had to be the work of more than one family. We were overwhelmed and so filled with gratitude! Christmas is not about what you get and we know that. We would have had a wonderful celebration and strived to focus on Christ as much as possible no matter what. It did make us feel very loved and gave us a desire to pass this kind of special thing to someone else in the future. Thank you again to the people who did this for us. It is something we will never ever forget.


Ross and I read the Christmas story from Luke 2 to the children, let them open their Christmas pajamas, and put them to bed. Then we put on the movie "A Christmas Story", followed by "Mr. Krueger's Christmas" and finished getting ready for the next day.

Here's our tree just waiting to be seen by four little kids in the morning. We wrapped the red package back up and finished opening it Christmas morning. It's on the side table in the picture.

I told you I loved the twinkling Christmas tree look. Had to take another picture!

Maybe it will get worse as our kids get a little older, but thankfully they woke up about 7:30 or 8 like they normally do instead of 5 or something horrid like that. We passed around the Santa hat and passed around the gifts. I popped the cinnamon rolls from our Secret Santa in the oven and we had a lovely morning.

Daddy doesn't look very awake. He still has a nose strip on in fact! I love how Becky's feet are lifted off the floor here.

Hooray! Santa brought Samantha Princess Tiana!

Yippee! Santa brought Logan Gator Golf that he's wanted for 2 years!

How fun! Santa brought the kids Hungry, Hungry Hippos! It was fitting that I happened to find a song this year called "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas". It's a 50's novelty song and it's funny and cute. Look it up on YouTube. Or if you really want, let me know and I'll put it on a CD for you because I also have a fun song called "Dominick the Christmas Donkey" and other good ones. :o)

In the afternoon, we went out to my parent's house for dinner. We were there with my brother Ken and his family and the kids and dads and Papa Lay went sledding there in the subdivision. Papa brought his 4-wheeler and a chilly, but happy time was had by all.

Samantha and Logan on the sled. I think he's uncomfortable here.

Ross said Luke was a little cold and ready to go back to the house pretty quickly.

Spencer pulling Samantha up the hill

The ride home. What a way to travel!

Phew! I'm done. That's the whole story, folks. It was a really fun season. Believe it or not I even left out a few parts. Not many though. I hope your Christmas season was as joyous and as unforgettable as ours was!