Christmas Activities, Christmas Preparations, and Christmas Eve

Our month of December was full of all sorts of Christmas activities and preparations. There was lots of baking, caroling, creating Christmas gifts, and other such usual activites. I also performed in a couple Utah Voices concerts.

With family at the capitol after a Utah Voices Concert

Grandma and Grandpa Scott sent us a package for Christmas that included everything we needed to make chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

There was a lot of extra chocolate, so we dipped some pretzels and marshmallows too. It was a fun activity for everyone!

Christmas Eve we packed up our car and drove down to my parents' house. After lunch, we got ready to go sledding. Before taking off, we let Austin open one of his gifts. He was so excited to get boots that will keep his feet warm and dry as he tromps around in the snow!

I also got an early Christmas gift of boots from Nate. I am so excited to have boots! You would think that since I have lived in an area where it often snows a lot during the winter for about sixteen years, I would already have some decent boots. The truth of the matter is, I never really have. When my family first moved to Utah, they bought me and my brothers some very cheap boots because they didn't have much money at that point. My boots ended up being so bad that it hurt to wear them much, so I never did. It was more comfortable to wear my regular shoes and have my feet cold and wet than to wear my cheap boots. For some reason, I never did get any better boots over the years, so I am super happy to finally have some better ones now!

Sledding was great fun. There are more hills available near my parents' place for such activities than there are where we live. The snow was a bit more sparse by the time we got to it than ideal, but it still worked fine. Unfortunately, I have always been terrible at steering while sledding though. I haven't improved much from the time I first went sledding after we moved to Utah. On that occasion, I managed to run the sled directly into a tree. The next time down I went way off track again and accidentally hit a couple people coming up the hill...

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I ran the sled Austin and I were riding into the playground and up a slide on our first run, tipping our sled and sending Austin head first into the snow. Good thing snow makes for a soft landing.

Austin after our crash into the playground slide

I think my steering actually did improve somewhat by the end our our outing. Austin had a great time taking turns riding with Nate, his Uncle Ben, and me. After looking at our pictures though, we noticed Austin's typical look while headed down the hill was to have a huge smile across his face with his eyes shut tight. We only have a couple pictures where his eyes were actually opened.

After sledding, we returned to my parents' house to watch some Star Wars, eat dinner, read the Christmas story from the scriptures, sing Christmas songs, and finish a couple last minute Christmas preparations.