Christmas Lost and Found

Christmas 2014 is officially in the books! We just stuffed our Christmas tree into it's big green plastic bag (shezam, that takes a lot of stuffing)!. Tomorrow I shall take down the village...... one of the things I found this season:

I didn't put it up last year, and was feeling kinda bah humbug about it again this year, and told my friend Debbie that I wasn't going to do it, and she said, "Oh come on, you can do it, just put up one house at a time." And it just that little suggestion worked on me! I'm easy. Each year I don't have a clue how I'm going to get the cords and wires and everything plugged in and arranged so I just do it one house at a time and end up with a unique village.

The reason I do it is so that little children can enjoy it (and so I can play master of the universe). And thank heaven for these little children. They loved it! Just as I hoped they would. I remember when Angie and Forrest lived here a few years ago and Wyatt was a little guy and I got such cute photos of him looking at it. Hey, I can go find one! Rats,I can't find it. I am so grateful for each of you, and so grateful to have the love and solidarity we feel as a family, and grateful beyond words for each of you, and love being with these little cherubs, and dearly miss each one of you during the holidays.

Tony's family were visiting one night (Tony and Cindy and the older kids had tickets to the Tabernacle Choir downtown with the MUPPETS, which they said was awesome and I bet it was, but mixing the high brow word "Mormon Tabernacle Choir" with the MUPPETS can't help but make one smile).I got out my box with the "leftover" village pieces that I didn't use this year, put up a t.v. tray and covered it with one of my new snow white bath towels that I bought last summer when everyone was here (oh yay, it's almost summer again!) and told Eli, Viv and Cal they could built an additional t.v.-tray-sized strip mall to the side of the village. Here it is below. Isn't it adorable? Masters of the Universe in training!

I found this "tree of life" being posted on Facebook by everyone in the greater Salt Lake Valley. It's in Draper, just a few minutes from our house, so we drove over there one Sunday night with the kids, grabbed my mom and dad, and experienced it together and LOVED IT!!! I felt like I was at the tree of life because everyone around it was so lively! Lots of families taking it in, and it's at the bottom of a hill (plus it was warm-ish weather). Little kids rolling down the hill having a blast, everybody walking around with smiles on their faces, it's a fun, free, unfettered and fabulous find. My mom and dad weren't able to walk down the fairly steep hill that led right to the base of the tree (and good thing because I about had my feet taken out from under me a couple of times by a rolling child) but they enjoyed it from the sidewalk up above.

I lost my marbles and took the above picture of my co-worker Randy Dow, because it's what I stare at all day long. He is the Director of Children's Services for Valley Behavioral Health and doesn't even have his own office. He shares this with random other people who all share the computer. He is hard-working and eternally polite and calm. You also can see the top of my phone list peaking out of the bottom of this photo, and also the word "think" which somebody made a few years ago that says "before you make a decision THINK WWTD (which is "What would Tracy do" and she's the HR Director and a good egg) and also in the lefthand corner our blow-up snowman that my co-worker Marney's mom gave her. Between being kinda deaf, the big fan over my head constantly whirring and the blower going to keep the snowman inflated, I spent two weeks saying "what?"

I "found" three boxes that were exactly the right size to fill with the out-of-towner's Christmas presents. This is no smell feat. Keeping the tradition alive that my mom and dad started of sending the Christmas presents in a box with candy sprinkled on top just about does me in! Some day I'll retire from it all and just send a check, but for now, it's worth it!!

We lost our health, exactly three weeks ago today. And we're still hacking and sniffing, but it looks like we're gonna make it. I think we went through four bottles of DayQuil and Nyquil. It's been a doozy! And now poor Lolie has the flu, it sounds like. Oh it's so true, when you have your health you have everything!

I lost my dignity and took this selfie to send to Forrest, while frying bacon one night on the bed of the truck in the garage in 20 degree weather. I always think of Forrest when I do it because he was so non-plussed when he saw me doing it last summer.

I found the Christmas decorations, patiently waiting in their various boxes and shelves in the storage room. Isn't it fun to open a box and find something you forgot you had? I LOVE that. I kinda like to buy one 75% off thing every year after Christmas and tuck it away to surprise myself the next year. It takes a lot of time to decorate for Christmas. We all know that, and the pluses outweigh the minuses, but it's a stressor. I put up less and less each year though, and it always feels good to do "less." I did the "most" the year after Amy and Dave were married and had this house muffled in garlands and Dave was a little overwhelmed. That was the beginning of me thinking I may have overdone it, and it's much more under the radar now!

This year at times I felt like I'd lost the Christmas spirit but then Hallelujah, Christmas Eve rolled around and ho ho ho here came six beautiful kids and their mom and dad, OURS, and my mom and dad and we feasted on YUMMY Honey Baked Ham dinner, and watched Tony and Cindy's awesome family video about the first Christmas, and sang Christmas carols, and listened to strings playing along with the piano, and read Christmas stories, well, luckily the true meaning of Christmas was found that day. I also found it singing beautiful Christmas songs with our ward choir. Oh we're so GOOD! We have two ringers, one a tenor who looks just like Tim Tebow, and the other a soprano, brother and sister, and the children of our accompanist. I'm not sure how she convinced them to sing with us since they don't live in the ward, but YAY. It makes everyone soooooooooo much better. However, the Sunday we sang, I couldn't squeak out one single sound because of my blasted sickness. Not a peep. I did the best lip-synching job you've ever seen. I fake sang with gusto from my heart!

 My visiting teaching companion dropped off this bubbly on Christmas Eve - it had a real cork in it and everything! It was sparkling pear juice and was deliscioso!

Reagan sharing the love - and Jane, seems like the quiet one, but I have found she is the goofiest one of all!

Lauren got a selfie-stick at her basketball team gift exchange. What a COOL contraption!

I could listen to these girls play piano and instruments all night long. And I love that Jane is being the music stand!

"2 Nephi 2:2" is the way my dad wrote who this present was for. Clever!

 

And I found pie happiness at Village Inn!

We lost ourselves in the hilarity, nostalgia and occasional naughtiness of "A Christmas Story" - classic!

And then when we got up Christmas morning, it SNOWED. IT really SNOWED, just like in the movies. Just like the ones we used to know. It will be a Christmas everyone will remember for that. And I found deer tracks going right up to our door when I went outside first thing to get the morning paper. Just like Santa and his reindeer had really come in the night (and by the way they did come and we got all of your wonderful presents - THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!).

I was sick all over again on Christmas day and was so bummed to not have the wherewithall to go down and see everything the kids got, and hang out with them in our jammies. That's the BEST! But we went down the next day (not quite the same, but still so fun to see all of their toys. Calvin took me upstairs the other day and pulled me by the hand and said "Come on grandma, I'm going to show you EVERYTHING!" Okay buddy, you keep doing that for the next 15 years!!

We were able to go see Denny and Joe and Emma Christmas night with my mom and dad and FEASTED on homemade clam chowder and shrimp and warm, crunchy bread and oh it tasted so good! Well, that about wraps it up.............................

 Speaking of "wrapping" it up, we had a blast the other night going out with Tony and Cindy and the kids, supposedly to see the lights at Temple Square, but it was snowing so hard, it took them an hour and 45 minutes just to get to our house, and as we ate dinner at Chick A Fil we watched the snow just descending non-stop and blanketing State Street (the freeway was a parking lot and out of the question). The guys "called" it and we didn't go downtown after all, but whoopp-too-do, they took the three "littles" home and me and Cindy and the girls went to Target. Oh you girls love Target. It's a generational thing. You love it so, and my generation just doesn't have that lovin feeling. I love that you love it! We were having fun looking at wrapping paper and I noticed Cindy had someone in her cart.....

Somehow Lauren can look dignified no matter what she is doing.

and Reagan is the best movie star-in-the-making of them all!

 and yeah, Jane, I TOLD YOU she's the goofy one!  See?

HAPPY 2015 - May it be filled with unexpected opportunities, thrilling adventures, exploration, trips, family bonding time, testimony building, Forrest finding the right job, and love. XOXOXOXO mama bear