Welcome, Christmas!

We got the Christmas season off to a great start with Cass and Jason on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, visiting Temple Square to see the lights. This display is amazing; as many times as we've gone, it never gets old for me or for the kids, who can't get enough of it. My brother-in-law, Brad, is something of a lights connoisseur, and this place would be his nirvana. I'm not going to put many captions on these ... I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (in the interest of fairness, I should mention that Cass took many of them!).










We celebrated a mini-Christmas with Cass and Jason after we got back, dressing festively in Christmas cracker paper crowns and (apparently) college alma mater T-shirts. Sure, the dinner was Chinese food, but it felt holiday-ish, nonetheless, in a "Christmas Story" way.

Christmas princesses

We also had a gift exchange, which was the kids' favorite part of the post-lights evening.


A week later, we got around to putting up the tree; note the bags and boxes of holiday stuff in the background. In those boxes, Max found two things he liked: year-old candy canes (they're not bad, actually!) and a Santa hat.

That same week, the girls performed at the Festival of Trees, a beautiful annual event that we do as a Mommy-and-kids activity because 1) Daddy's usually not home from work by the time we have to be there; and 2) he HATES the crowds that accompany such events. Our Christmas performers looked beautiful and sounded great!

Em had duets with both Kate and Grace, and they performed alone. Gracie was very nervous, as usual, and her song sounded beautiful!


Kate's got some major concentration going here.


Stac's favorite tree: shockingly, it was "Lord of the Rings" themed. Look at all that merchandise on the floor! I want it! It should be mine, my own, my precious!

The girls, on the other hand, fell in love with the "Labyrinth" themed tree. I want to know where they got all the merchandise from that movie; it was kind of a flop when it came out!

Kate's very, very favorite thing was the clay nativity of PIGGIES!

Em asked to take him home. I said she could if she carried him out to the van herself.

Em and Grace also performed in their school Christmas choir the next week and did a great job. Grace was concentrating so hard on the choir director that she didn't see Max's repeated attempts to wave to her. She didn't miss a word or a cue (and Emma would want me to hasten to say that she didn't, either!). The last day of school before Christmas break was the sing-along, a wonderful event that gave me more Christmas spirit than anything else this season. Nothing feels as luminously joyous as listening to elementary-schoolers belt out "Twelve Days of Christmas" at top volume, and you can take that to the bank!

We were so lucky to have Aunt Jen come for a few days. She had great timing: she caught several recitals and performances, the Johnson family Christmas party (more on that in a sec) and got to come to school to help with gingerbread house building in Kate's class!

Kate's friend, Janell, brought treats for everybody, and she gave Max one. He felt like a member of the class.

Kate and Janell work on their creations.


Max chats with Janell during gingerbread-house construction. OK, they're actually graham-cracker houses, but they look pretty dang decent!

Due to my amazing organizational skills, we somehow missed the fact that we had a piano recital that night. We were at Wal-Mart when Rozann called to see if we were coming. We rushed down, sans music, and Emma got up and did a beautiful job singing "Ave Maria" (it's all in Latin, mind you!) from memory. I was very proud of her. Gracie was at a sleepover birthday party, so she didn't perform, but Kate and Em both played piano. I started thinking that maybe I should just spring recitals on them every time, because they both did wonderful performances.

Christmas isn't Christmas for me until we've had the Johnson family Christmas party. Jen and I were privileged earlier in the week to go out and help G&G Johnson finish the MANY batches of caramel popcorn they must make to have enough for every family in our big, ever-growing group. At the party, I helped with the kids' white elephant gift exchange. I didn't see anybody disappointed, so I guess it was a success!

Two of my favorite people, looking great at the party.

Gram directed the music during the nativity program, which seems to get wackier, from a costuming standpoint, every year. This may be because I always end up doing the costumes (for example, that's Grace being a sheet-sheep, and Emma's wise-man "beard" is her hair braided under her chin) ...

One of our last Christmas tune-ups was a second piano recital; Rozann wanted us to come so Grace could perform. They all did very well, performing the same music they did at the Festival of Trees. I had them all sit at the piano for this picture; note Em's dramatic, "yes, I am a MUSICIAN," pose.


I love the little dude waving in the background!

The kids love taking lessons from Rozann (that's her, above), her daughter, Holly, and their staff. I have been very happy with their progress and, most importantly, with the confidence and enjoyment they have gained from playing the piano. This studio really emphasizes the joy of music, and I love that. Listening to my girls play "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Jingle Bells" and "The First Noel" and "Silent Night" was one of the best parts of this Christmas season.