A Holly Jolly Christmas

This year was the best Christmas yet!  Although every year is the best Christmas yet - it seems that every year gets sweeter.  We started the Christmas festivities on Tuesday night by going to A Christmas Carol at Hale Center Theater with my family.  Eric, me, and my parents went last year and we liked it so much we went back this year with everyone.  It's such a good way to get into the spirit of Christmas.  After the play, we went to Astro Burger before heading over to my parent's house to make Christmas sugar cookies.

We started the sugar cookie tradition last year because my Dad's Grandma used to make the most delicious sugar cookies.  That was her gift to her grandchildren each year for Christmas.  I was 7 when she died and I still remember everyone talking about her sugar cookies at her funeral.  My Dad tried out her recipe last year and they were delicious, only to find out from one of his Aunts that it wasn't actually the real recipe.  She gave him the real recipe and we made it this year.  We were totally authentic and didn't even use an electric mixer - we used a wooden spoon to stir it.  Turns out stirring cookies with a wooden spoon is hard so we all took turns.  It was fun to make the cookies together as a family.

Skylee was so delightful while we were making cookies.  She had been sick for several days so it was so nice to see her back to her usual behavior.  At one point she was trying to take the cat's temperature with a USB drive.  I guess her mama had taken her temperature more than once in the preceding days.

Christmas Eve, we got up, packed out presents, and went to my parent's house.  We spent the day delivering cookies to my Dad's siblings.  We stopped by Clair's house first before going to Richard's and Kerry's.  Our last stop in Ephraim was to see Linda.  Her granddaughter Kadence was there and wanted us to play games with her, so Bret, me, and Jenny all played.  She made up the rules as we went - it was hilarious.  I can't wait until Skylee is that age!

After Linda's, we headed back to Provo to stop at Kim's house and then went over to Kristin's for dinner.  She made delicious homemade pizza.  We finished the night by playing Apples to Apples, Heads Up, and singing all the Christmas songs in the Hymn Book.  Our Christmas Eve Tradition is that my Dad reads "The Night Before Christmas."  I love it.  After he finished reading we called it a night and went back to my parent's house.

Eric and I have a tradition of doing matching pajamas every Christmas Eve so we opened those, watched Scrooged, and then went to bed.  To this day, I still cannot sleep on Christmas Eve night.  I'm pretty much a child when it comes to Christmas.  It drives Eric crazy because I usually wake up around 3:00 AM and don't go back to sleep.  This year was no exception and I was wide awake at 3:00.  I stayed in bed for a while before Eric kicked me out and then I spent the rest of the morning watching Grey's Anatomy before everyone else woke up.

The rest of the family woke up and we started Christmas Morning by reading in Luke 2 about the birth of Christ.  This is another tradition that I love.  We always read about the first gift of Christmas before opening any presents.  Our first presents were our stockings.  I wasn't in the mood to shop for stocking stuffers this year, so Eric took care of them.  We assembled them together the night before, but at around 4:30 in the morning, I got bored and decided to switch things up.  I got Eric two signed baseballs for Christmas, so I very carefully unwrapped one of them and put them in the toe of his stocking, replacing it with the Chocolate Orange I had placed there the night before.  I then put the chocolate orange into the baseball case and wrapped it back up.  Eric was so surprised when he opened his stocking and discovered a David Wells Baseball in the toe.

Christmas morning was a delight.  Eric got me the Oh Jerusalem painting by Greg Olson.  I've been wanting a piece of art to hang above our couch to replace our wedding photos and this one was perfect.  I got Eric two signed baseballs, one from David Cone and one from David Wells.  This was significant because Eric now has signed baseballs from all three Yankees pitchers who have thrown a perfect game.

Dan, Kristin, and Skylee came over mid-morning.  Skylee was so precious.  She had already opened her bitty baby doll from her parents and she was so excited.  She kept saying "my baby."  She easily had 3 times as many presents like everyone else, but we clearly couldn't help ourselves.  She's the cutest.  In fact, she got tired of opening presents about halfway through and didn't want to open anymore.  We had to come back a while later to help her open the rest of her presents.

After the gift exchange, we helped make aebleskivers for Christmas morning breakfast.  I love this tradition - we've done it every Christmas morning for as long as I can remember.  They are delicious!  After breakfast, we turned on a movie and I fell fast asleep until Jake and Meg arrived and we opened presents with them.  At this point, all of my siblings were home.  We were only together for about 45 minutes before Eric and I had to leave to go to the Troff Family Party.

The Troff Family Party was delightful.  We talked with several members of Eric's extended family as well as his siblings.  It was wonderful to spend time with them on Christmas.

After the Troff Party, we went back to my parent's house and played Risk with Jake, Meg, and my parents.  We got Risk for Jake and Meg for Christmas because Jake loves the game.  We played it one time when we were camping with my parents in their trailer and my Mom HATED it.  We haven't played it since.  Eric helped me out since I was new to the game and I won!  We had a lot of fun playing.

Overall, this Christmas was one for the books.  We had a wonderful time spending time with family and friends and contemplating the birth of our Savior.  I'm so grateful for his birth, life, and atonement.