Christmas!

Christmas has come and gone. It has been a time of great reflection as Jason and I have discussed traditions we want to begin when we have children. Growing up, I never had many gifts. My siblings and I would buy each other small gifts--Gregg always gave everyone lifesavor books. The Santa gift was always unwrapped so that we could distinguish his gift from the rest. And we took turns opening gifts so that we could see what everyone received. Although, my parent's ulterior motive was to make it appear as if we had a lot of presents to open because it took a couple of hours to open all the gifts.

Yet, my most vivid Christmas memories of childhood are spiritual in nature. My mother would hang our stockings on December 1st. She would have them filled with 24 pieces of paper. Each day we would draw a piece of paper out of our stockings. Some papers asked us to perform little acts of service for each other, like "make your sister's bed today" or "read a story to your little brother." Other pieces of paper asked us to write in our journal or read selections from the scriptures. And there was always one that said, "Go to mom and dad a get a treat." It was one way my mother taught us the real meaning of Christmas.

And then there was Christmas Eve. It has always been a very spiritual time in my family. We acted out the nativity to a recording of my father reading from the scriptures, with the Tabernacle Choir singing Silent Night in the background. We would sing Christmas hymns and talk about Jesus. Today we no longer act out the nativity. Instead we listen to that old recording of my father's. I figure it is almost 30 years old. It's funny how as a child the focus is on receiving gifts, yet as an adult my greatest memories of Christmas growing up were about giving and about the Savior. I credit the power of those memories to my parents and the effort they took amid all the materialistic chaos of the season.

Finally! A New Entry

For all those that have complained, and you know who you are, I am posting a new entry. Since I last wrote I have spent most of my spare time writing parent/teacher conferences or baking Christmas goodies for the neighbors. Since Monday I have baked 13 loaves of pumpkin bread, 4 loaves of apple spice bread, and 12 small loaves of challah. When I am done with this entry I will begin baking 2 to 4 loaves of banana bread. I haven't had much time for anything else.

It has been a busy month with the ward Christmas party, family Christmas parties, and family birthday parties. I was excited to celebrate Kennedy's first birthday. It is hard to believe that she has been in the family for year. She was a cute, but sick, ice princess in her pretty pink outfit. And like any 1 year old, she lost interest in her gifts, especially all the clothes she received. A great weakness of mine is buying baby clothes and it requires a lot of restraint to walk into Meier and Frank and not look at cute outfits I could buy for Kennedy.

After Kennedy's birthday party, Chloe had a sleep over at my house. We took Trax downtown and went up to the observation deck at the LDS Church Office Building. We met my mother at the top. She is a hostess there, taking people on tour. We were able to see the top of the Salt Lake Temple and look at all the ant size people and cars. Unfortunately the fog was so thick we could not see the mountains or take any decent pictures. Afterward we went into the Distribution Center. Chloe saw postcards of all the temples and wanted to find the temple where Kennedy was sealed to Jared and Tara. We found a picture of the Manti temple and she wanted to purchase it so she could give it to Kennedy. She thought Kennedy would enjoy having that picture in her room. What a thoughtful cousin!