“During this Christmas season, and throughout the year, I pray that we will remember the Generous One – our God, our Father, our beloved Shepherd and Counselor. For He is the Gift-Giver! He is the Generous One!…He endows us with gifts so sublime and precious that they exceed out ability to fully comprehend and even imagine. He gives us peace, joy, abundance, provision, favor, hope, confidence, love, salvation, and eternal life.
This Christmas season we celebrate the greatest gift of all, the one that makes all other gifts possible – the birth of the babe of Bethlehem…
May we, this Christmas season, remember our generous Heavenly Father and give profound and heartfelt thanks to our Almighty God, who has given all of His children wings to fly.”
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Christmas School
We loved incorporating Christmas School into our school days. The carols, the crackling fireplace, the stories – it was PERFECT! I did a whole post about our Joy to the World Christmas unit from The Mindful Heart HERE.
Ornaments
Every year Gramps and Grammy give the kids a new ornament – usually reflective of something important from the last year. When they came for Sarah’s Nutcracker performance they gave the kids their new ornaments.
And MORE ornaments!
This time – we MADE some new ornaments! The kids had fun designing and stitching ornaments made out of felt for their Christmas trees.
We also participated in a fun ornament exchange again this year with some friends and the kids made some fun popsicle ornaments to share. I also really enjoyed making my ornaments this year!
Tummy Troubles
Boy oh boy this has been a weird month for the kids. We have had a lot of upset tummies! I had bought myself a carpet cleaner for Christmas (yes, this is what brings me joy right now!) but it simply HAD to be opened early to help with all of the throwing up that my carpet has experienced! I look forward to the day when the kiddos finally make it to the bathroom!
But in all seriousness, I have felt so sorry for each of them. They have all the tummy troubles at least once this month and that is never fun. Even the night before Christmas Eve we had another round and so it has been a doozy of a month!
Christmas Recital
Jacob and Sarah played a beautiful Christmas piano recital for us and family (via FaceTime!). Benjamin even played a little something – I think this next year he will begin and he is excited!
Jacob played Up on the Housetop and Joy to the World and Sarah played Jingle Bells and O Come All Ye Children.
Winter Solstice
We love celebrating the changing of the seasons. We had a cozy day inside (though we are all sad that we do not have a bit of snow on the ground!), drank lots of wassail, and made beef stew and bread.
We also did something new! We decided to make a family “Winter Bucket List”. Each one of us picked something we wanted to do as a family this winter! We are so excited! I made a cute sign for our fridge to get us excited for the upcoming season.
This year we also started a new tradition – or maybe just expanded on our tradition. We have celebrated Advent for several years now. But this year, Mark and the kids got me a “25 Days of Christ” wooden wreath. Each day has a name of Christ and a candle to light. It was pretty magical to light up more and more each day. Although it did take a bit to clean up all of our wax by the end! 😉
Gingerbread Decorating
Jacob and Sarah did a gingerbread house decorating activity in Primary and so we did giant gingerbread men instead at home! Sarah wasn’t entirely convinced that this counted as making gingerbread houses but we are counting it for our winter bucket list 🙂
We had a gingerbread man, a snow bear, and a snowman!
Christmas Baking
What is Christmas without a whole lot of time in the kitchen?! We made all sorts of treats this month. We made dozens and dozens and dozens of gingersnap cookies to give to neighbors and friends, Christmas bon bons, and sugar cookies. For Christmas Eve, I also made some fun mozzarella pull apart rolls in the shape of a tree. It’s the little things!
Christmas Eve
We had a quiet Christmas Eve in ways. Jacob and Sarah had been sick the night before and so I stayed home with them from Church. Mark had double duty accompanying both the Primary and a young woman in our ward for Christmas.
I made our big Christmas Eve feast and it was a special night spent together and reflecting on our Savior.
Christmas
Christmas Day was beautiful. Christmas with children is magical and I am so grateful for this time together. We loved spending the day together playing and munching on good food. It was perfection.
