Category: family

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New Year’s Past

When my children were little one thing that was always a part of Christmas and New Year’s was the “cracker.” Not a cracker-cracker, like you’d eat with cheese, but a cracker like the paper ones you’d break open with a “crack” and find small prizes inside. One of the trinkets that was always a charming part of the cracker was a paper crown. They were quite fragile–being made out of tissue paper and all, but the kids loved them. Best part about them was that it was a fun tradition that they came to expect and love.

So, years later, when they were grown–we got really brave and decide not only to make our own crowns, but to hand make the crackers as well. We had a blast finding just the right loot to fill the crackers with for each family member.

And it was even more fun to force all the grown-ups to wear the crowns! HA!

If you’d like to make your own crackers or crowns–it’s so easy and there’s still time.

Click HERE for crowns

and HERE for crackers.

I hope you’ll come back and show us how they turn out!

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One More Christmas Carol

A few days before Christmas, our family waltzed on over to the Hale Center Theater to see the play “A Christmas Carol.” When I’m independently wealthy, I intend to take my family every year–as a new and glorious Christmas tradition. (Emily–look up, look up! April, Jacob–smile.)

Of course, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual performance, still, it was all there and positively perfect!

There was the ghost of Christmas Past….sad, sad, sad—

the Ghost of Christmas Present…quite an eye opener—

and the creepy Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. While this spooky dude was on the stage, Lyndi leaned over and whispered, “Expecto Patronum!”

We. Lost. It.

So, yeah–at the most solemn part of the whole show–weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth–and we’re completely engulfed in a preposterous, hysterical giggling fit.

Sheesh.

If we could only learn to behave.

Not holding my breath. (PHILLIP! For the millionth time—no sticking your tongue out in the family picture!)

~sigh~

Someday…someday…

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Christmas Day Heaven

Do you remember waking on Christmas morning before it was even light outside, and shaking with excitement as you saw the front room that had been transformed into a sparkling, positively magical place? Boy, I do.

It was so wonderful watching Chompy open her presents, and love them…

even the clothes! What a good sport of a baby.

Jillian could hardly believe the lovely gifts she received from her dearest friend Sarah–all the way from England!

The bald kid was thrilled with his Russian vocabulary book. Pretty sure that’s going to come in handy–real soon.

Then our April and the “second wave” arrived. Sounds like the name of a band–don’t you think?

The babies were sweet to take turns and tried very hard to wait patiently until their turn to open a present…

but they never understood why we would ask them to come open something else–when they were happily playing with what they already had. Perhaps next year, we’ll take things a bit slower and maybe take a full week or so to unwrap. Don’t know if anyone will agree with me, but wouldn’t a couple of presents every day be great fun–instead of all at once?

Ok, it’s true. We did have our share of meltdowns here and there, simply because…

we didn’t know that a toy drum would be the hit of the land…and there are three kids…and one drum.

Do the math.

But the day was, by farrrr—a mystical, magical thing, with enough squeals and giggling to add a hundred years to this grammy’s heart.

“All of the music
All of the magic
All of the family home here with me.”

I do hope your Christmas was everything that brings you joy!  Thanks for being with us!

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Shhhh….It’s a Secret!

Tip toe on over here and let me show you something. Oh, wait. I really don’t want my kids to see–so I’ll meet you behind the “Secrets” tab…or just CLICK HERE. You’ll see a bit of what’s up for Christmas in these parts.

:} hee, hee…

 

 

Oh, yes–and Happy Winter Solstice everyone. This day–Tuesday December 21 is an amazing rarity. Find out why–right HERE.  Winter officially begins today at 3:38 pm.  Imagine that!

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{ Paper Dolls }

By Norman D. Anderson

One Christmas, I was serving as a bishop in a Provo, Utah, ward. Because I had never had much success in selecting and buying clothes for my wife, I had, for the past several years, cut out a paper doll, wrapped a twenty-dollar bill around it like a dress, and hung it on the tree as a special gift for her. In those days, twenty dollars would buy a pretty nice dress.

But because of a tight budget this particular year, I had struggled for weeks to save the twenty dollars to hang on the tree.

The day before Christmas, my plans changed suddenly when a man needing help came by my office. I could not reach my financial clerk to obtain fast offering funds, so I gave the man five of my twenty dollars so he could go home for Christmas. I tucked the remaining fifteen dollars away in my wallet, hoping it would do for a dress.

A few minutes later, a man from my ward came into my office. He said, “Bishop, one of my home teaching families won’t have much for Christmas this year without help. I have fifteen dollars. If I could get a little more from somewhere, I could get a few things for them.”

I knew he needed his money as much as I needed mine, so I handed him my fifteen dollars and said a sad farewell to my wife’s Christmas dress.

My disappointment over the dress lightened when the children finally settled down on Christmas Eve and we had set out their gifts for them. But when my wife went to get ready for bed at midnight, I sat moping in a chair for a few minutes because my traditional gift hadn’t worked out.

Suddenly the thought came to me that I should look in my wallet again. There, where I had taken out the money to give to the home teacher, was fifteen dollars. I looked in another compartment and found another fifteen dollars. In the final compartment there was a twenty-dollar bill—making a total of fifty dollars that had not been there earlier!

I wept in gratitude as I cut out a paper doll and hung it on the tree.