First Santa Sighting: December 1 in front of Little America Hotel in Salt Lake. This is the only Santa's lap I will sit on.
Un-Christmas related, but on December 1, Brian called to tell me he got 6 tickets to go and see the Jazz play that night. So, I scrambled to find a baby-sitter, and Lea, Shayne, their cousin Taylor, and my brother Ethan joined us in Salt Lake to go watch the Jazz. It was my first ever NBA game, and Brian caught this hat. He gave me the cardboard support, so I put it on my head because I'm silly like that. It was very exciting at the end--but the Jazz ended up losing by 1 point.
Brian gave the hat to Shayne because we're really not that into the Jazz. I haven't been since the Jazz lost to the Bulls back to back years in the Championships.
Our ward Christmas party was a breakfast this time, and Santa came. Yay!
Throughout December, I slowly worked on getting the presents wrapped and under the tree. On our first night wrapping session, we wrapped two presents each for Michael and Rachel, knowing that Gabe wouldn't know or care if he didn't have a present under the tree, and we were taking the slow and steady approach to Christmas wrapping. Well,
somebody noticed that Gabe didn't have a present, and we found this package under the tree that very next morning:.
Michael couldn't stand the fact that Gabe didn't have a present. He also tried to find something for Brian, but I explained to him that it would all work out and we would all have presents by Christmas morning.
Brian had two work parties this year. One at the Tree Room in Sundance with just his team, and the food was AMAZING! The second was with the entire Utah chapter of Adobe at the Living Planet Aquarium. It's more of a party scene than we are into, so we watched a 4D movie in their theater,
visited the Penguin exhibit and their new Asia exhibit, hung around for the raffle, and then went home. Someday we'll be cool enough for the Adobe party, but probably not.
This year, we decided to adopt a tradition I had while growing up--to draw names and make something for the person whose name you drew. This really meant that Brian and I did most of the work, but we tried to find projects where they could participate. On December 3, Brian took Rachel and Michael to Moana so that Gabe and I could work on a mermaid blanket for Rachel. The next Saturday, December 10, I took Michael to Moana so Rachel and Brian could make a truck for Michael. We also went to IHOP for lunch, just the two of us. We had to run a few errands, one of which was for his project for Gabe, and we also had to kill some extra time so Brian and Rachel could finish.
On December 13, Rachel had her Winter Showcase for dance. We love our tiny dancer:
Here she is with her teacher:
Adobe arranged to have Santa come and visit again, so we signed up for a slot on December 13, just before dinner. This is really the only way we would do a professional picture with Santa because it is free, and we don't have to wait in line. Thanks, Adobe! Here's Gabe waiting for our turn, which was only about a 5 minute wait.
Family Christmas photo:
After seeing Santa, we grabbed some dinner and headed to a nursing home for my studio's piano recital (which is why we're in dress clothes for the Santa pictures). The set up wasn't ideal, and the piano was out of tune in a bad way, but the residents loved having us. They especially loved my kids who sat by them during the recital, and I had to remind myself that we weren't there for amazing sound or professionalism--we were there to bring some joy to the residents there. Michael finally got to perform "Carol of the Bells", which he first learned last Christmas, and he did a great job. I was really proud of him. I love my budding musician.
Rachel made this gingerbread house in Preschool. After I took the picture, she proceeded to eat all the candy off of it.
And what would December be like without going to see the new Star Wars movie? Adobe, the sponsor of all things fun this December, rented out the theater on December 15th. We paid $10 per ticket and that included our seat and popcorn and soda. We were going to go with our friends Brian and Stephanie (Brian also works at Adobe), but Stephanie was sick, so they gave us their tickets and we invited Brian's parents. We ate at Olive Garden beforehand, and then went to the theater.
The movie was AWESOME! It's the best Star Wars movie yet.
One thing we really loved this year was having 5 stockings hanging on our mantle. It filled us with indescribable joy.
Finally, on the 16th, Michael and I started his project for Gabe. He helped me layout the patterns, pin, and even a little cutting.
He sat on my lap and pushed down the pedal to sew all the stitches. There were only a few that I just did myself. And he stuffed it all by himself:
Brian tied the tie, I sewed on the eyes and made a nose. It took us two days. It was fun working on something with Michael. We don't get to do things like that very often anymore. Ta-Da!
Michael had his school Christmas program on December 19. His class/grade sang "The Happiest Christmas Tree." Seating was outrageous, so I stood for most of the program, but since his class was one of the last to go, enough parents left to give me, Rachel, and Gabe a prime viewing spot:
It made me happy that he was excited to see me. I don't know how many more years he will show his excitement.
It was a busy time getting everything ready to go, but by the time we loaded up our car on December 22 to go to Idaho, we were ready, and it felt good to just relax and enjoy the holiday.
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