December Little Things

Boy, does December seem like a blur! This isn't surprising; it pretty much always does between the concerts and parties and cards and baking and gift-giving and receiving. This December, Boyce and I were smart and calendared out the most important activities we wanted to make sure and do!

We kicked the season off with a "Family Home Evening" (FHE) that included making a gingerbread house. :)

That first weekend in December, we went to the Festival of Trees - one of my very favorite things to do during the holidays. It's a fund-raiser where proceeds go to Primary Children's Hospital, and it is now huge! People lavishly decorate trees, gingerbread houses, wreaths, etc. - often in memory of a loved one who has passed away - and then the items/exhibits are auctioned off.

An "It's a Small World" gingerbread house.

Isn't this gingerbread house so beautiful?

This was part of a tree exhibit for someone who passed away from Cystic Fibrosis.

Grace loved this "Frozen" tree exhibit.

Of course, December wouldn't have been complete with a visit to see Santa! We were very excited to see him!

Connor was downright fascinated by this man in red and white. But not afraid. :)

Boyce and I snuck away from the kids one night to go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas Concert featuring Santino Fontana (the singer who plays "Hans" in "Frozen") and then the cast of Sesame Street. It was purely magical! I wish our kids had been a little older so they could've come and enjoyed it!

We also managed to score some tickets to hop aboard the "Polar Express" and travel there to see Santa in his element at home in the North Pole.

There we are on the train.

Yup, we found our way to Santa's village in the North Pole!

Yay, on the return trip we got to see beautiful pictures of Christ and his birth.

One evening in December, we went up to Temple Square with our good friend Cami to see the beautiful Christmas lights. Pure magic, I tell you.

Cami and me!

One fantastic thing we did in December for Family Home Evening is joined with our friends the Willises and Wilsons and acted out the nativity play with our kids. What a great experience it was! Grace got to play the part of Mary, which she was ecstatic about, Boyce was King Herod, Connor was a sheep, and I was an angel. :)

My little lamb. Isn't he cute?!

And here we all are dressed up!

Grace hugging Baby Jesus in his manger.

All the kiddos.

Boyce, in all his glory!

One final thing we did in December (this was actually toward the beginning of the month) was went to a live nativity, and it was incredible (sadly I have no pictures to show for it!). It was super crowded, and we had to wait about an hour to board the bus (i.e. horse trailer!) to shuttle us to the location, but in my opinion it was well worth it.

The idea was that you enjoy how Jerusalem and the humble stable were in the time of Jesus. We walked past pens of camels, sheep, goats, and other livestock, all while listening to the Roman soldiers proclaiming that we need to pay our taxes for the census. The soldiers were no joke, and Grace and Connor didn't know quite what to make of them. You then wind your way into the city of Jerusalem itself, complete with all sorts of people making and selling goods (crafts, pottery, jewelry, food, etc.) and again pass by more livestock.

Once you're outside the city walls, you wind up another path that takes you to the very humble little stable, where inside were Joseph and Mary holding an actual newborn baby boy wrapped in swaddling clothes! Honestly, Connor was so done by this point that he had no patience to behold this family, but I could see Grace's little brain taking it all in, and it made me so grateful we'd come. After we left the stable, we got some hot chocolate and then boarded the horse trailer to shuttle us back the way we'd come.

All in all we had a wonderful time celebrating everything the season had to offer, both spiritual aspects as well as all things fun - lights, Santa, everything.