Christmas Cheer

The last few days have felt like everything is right and good. Simple things have made it feel that way. First we had Ray-Ray's baptism on Saturday Dec. 20th which I'll write about later with pictures. The next day we went to David's dad's annual Christmas party. The running joke between Dave and his 4 full-blooded siblings is "Who's dead to who this year?" among their other five half-siblings. This year, it seemed like everyone got along well but even beyond that, everyone seemed peaceful and cheerful. (Of course, those that are dead to the others weren't at the party.)

David was born into a very musical family. His dad sang for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 20 years. Dave's older brother has his PhD in vocal performance and his sister has her Master degree in the same and Dave's younger brother performs locally. Many play the guitar or piano. With this many artists in the family you'd think we'd get a lot of Christmas caroling going on but in the last couple years it has been like pulling teeth. To one brother, singing was dead to him, to another brother his voice was dead to him, or to others they hadn't practiced, or they were too sick to sing. The excuses to not sing put such a damper on the annual party but this year was different. Everyone's voice was alive. It was so enjoyable to sing together. We even had a Christmas message which has been hit and miss each year due to family members with changing values and beliefs.

Yesterday, Monday morning, I woke up early to go jogging. It was surprisingly warm and mild outside. I was almost too hot in my layered jackets. I ran down and around BYU and back home. Right when I got home, the snow started to lightly fall and then heavily fall. It continued to snow the whole day. There was pretty good dumpage, transforming the city into a wonderland.

After jogging, we all got together with David's family and mom Lovisa for her annual book shopping. Every year she takes all of us out to the BYU Bookstore to get books for Christmas. She was a Librarian for years and taught English and ESL at BYU and UVU so it is only right for her to give books for Christmas and we love it. She took us all out for breakfast first. The roads were horrible due to the sky falling. The best part of trying to get to the restaurant was David (who was driving) saying "If everyone would just practice donuts in a parking lot they'd understand the limits of their car and wouldn't have to drive so slow in the snow." Then, right as we were pulling into Village Inn, he had to slow behind a truck to make a left hand turn and even though we were going no faster than 10 miles an hour, and the ABS was going off like crazy, we couldn't stop in time. Dave hit the guy in front of us. It was humorous to me. The other guy's truck was fine but we got a crack in our bumper. I am so past caring about my bumper or my van for that matter because it is so beat up (but it's paid for). We all had a great breakfast and I got my favorite, a Belgian waffle with strawberries and whip cream (one of those simple things).

After book shopping, the rest of the afternoon was spent lazily at home watching the snow pile up. In the early evening I went to an elderly lady's home down the street to help her put eye drops in her eyes. It was a simple thing to do that made me happy. When I got home, the kids wanted to go sledding. The snow had stopped but it was dark by now. I decided we'd go ahead and go night sledding because the snow lit up the night so well. Standing on the hill in the dark bright night was brilliant. It was one of those times when I tell myself "remember this".











The last thing we did before bed was a Christmas tradition. Each year, we write letters to each other and put them in envelopes and place them on the tree. We get to open them on Christmas Day. My mom and dad started this when I was a teenager and David and I have done it with our family ever since. It is appropriate for us because writing letters was essential to our courtship so I like to carry it on. I will always love getting love letters. Lou had me write her words for her in which she kept calling us all "rock stars". Afterwards we had chocolate chip cookies with cold milk (another simple thing) for dessert.

Today was another lazy great day and the kids and I went sledding again. Seeing that this lady would still venture out in the snow to give doggy treats made my dog happy.