Christmas Eve 2012

This year we invited my parents and my sister Lindsey to join us in Spanish Fork for Christmas. It was only the second time in the 12 years Lee and I have been married that we have had Christmas at our house. Since Lee is usually gone to work (which was the case this year, as well), the girls and I usually pack up and go to someone else's house for the holidays. I will admit I really enjoyed staying here this year!

We began our Christmas Eve festivities with some cookie making and decorating:

In case you were wondering what Melissa was doing while the rest of us were decorating cookies, she was trying diapers out as hats:

Then we acting out the Christmas story while my dad read from Luke 2. Morgan's favorite thing to be is all the animals in the story. In this picture, she is a donkey carrying Mary and Jesus (too big to be concealed under a shirt until (his) birth...) to Bethlehem.

Joseph (we were a little short on males for our production...), Mary, and Baby Jesus (along with a sheep in the background):

An angel of the Lord:

The narrator:

Just before the 3 kings (Lindsey) arrived, Morgan favored us by playing "We Three Kings" on her cello:

 Baby Jesus wasn't quite sure what to think of the gift being offered (him) by the Wise (Wo)man:

I'll admit the Nativity is never boring in our house. I always hope that in the midst of the fun, the kids are able to appreciate the events that took place. I am grateful for the chance to pause and remember the Savior, His birth, and all that His life makes possible for us.

Christmas Cookies: Like Mother, Like Daughter

I've never been one for messes. My house isn't always perfectly clean, but I have a really tough time with clutter and messes. I've also never really been one for baking. I LOVE baked items, but I haven't traditionally enjoyed the time and effort required to bake things. Because of these two things, I have always passed Christmas cookie making onto someone else. It was a tradition in our family that I loved as a kid, so I really wanted it to be a tradition in our home too; however, I didn't want to be the adult in charge.

A few years back Lee was wonderful and helped the girls make cookies. (I helped a little, I just wasn't in charge so that I didn't feel too stressed by the mess.) Then last year, my parents were visiting our house for Christmas and things went down the way they always have -- my Mom made the dough and baked the cookies, while my Dad helped Morgan and Brynne roll out the dough and cut shapes.

My Dad has amazing patience for letting kids put the cookie cutters wherever they want-even if it's in the middle of the dough. My Dad also loves to hand out samples of the dough, probably because he delights in the joy on kids' faces when he gives them some (especially if Mommy just barely told them they couldn't have any). I remember making cookies a lot with my Dad when we were younger (usually sugar cookies or chocolate chip). We children would look at him and chirp like a baby bird, and then he would break off a piece of dough to feed us.

I remember now that when I started this post, I really wanted to tell you how Morgan is definitely my child. When we made cookies as a kid, I usually only decorated five or six of the more than 100 we made as a family. This was because I was very meticulous in my decorating. For example, the Christmas tree was green with a yellow star, a brown trunk (brown sprinkles), white tinsel, and many different colors of ornaments. I somehow managed to make every cookie a work of art, which I find quite fascinating because creativity is generally not my thing.

Anyway, this year we made about 50 tiny cookies. The girls and I set to work to frost them all. Everything was going great until Morgan decided to take time to give her gingerbread man a face, hair, and buttons. Next thing I knew, she had made a star with four different colors and a Christmas tree complete with stripes. As I started frosting double-time to make up for how much time she was taking, I began to understand what my parents felt like watching me frost cookies. Like mother, like daughter!