Christmas Morning 2016

The kids woke up at 6:00am (reasonable).  

We snuggled up and cried over our traditional reading of "Christmas Day in the Morning" until about 7:00am (even better).  

Then, it was time to re-light the candles, climb the stairs, 

 and wake up Grandpa.  

There was never a more cheerful rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas!"  (Sorry, Dad! ;)

Spencer always dives directly for the largest present in his pile.

"Thanks, Grandpa!!!!"

 

Lucy keeps a more tradition approach, carefully examining the contents of her stocking before opening anything else.  She was beyond excited about chocolate frogs ("With wizard cards that really  move!!").

(And when she started to cough later on in the morning, and I said, "Bless you," she smiled her subtle smile and said, "Just a frog in my throat.")

Whitney hadn't brought her Christmas stocking, so Santa used his hat instead.

(and Whit displayed admirable excitement over the extremely thrilling contents of the hat...like packs of gum ;)

When Spencer finally looked through his stocking, he was happy to find repeats of everything Lucy had taken out earlier...chocolate frogs and legos, Mickey straws and mechanical pencils....

...but he was overjoyed about a mini stapler that Santa's elves must have overheard him wishing for earlier in the month.  "My stapler!!!!!!!!!!!!" was maybe the loudest cry of the morning.  

(Although Lucy's cheer while opening a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch came close.)

Cute as the kids were, I'm pretty sure Grandpa was the cutest.

And Whitney was right up there too.  I made her smile and pose with practically all of her gifts.  

"Your mom will want to see this!" I kept telling her, and she was such a good sport.  

I opened some lovely presents as well, but one of the best gifts was delivered by a counselor in our Stake Presidency.   

President DeHart was in his church suit and everything, and I wish I'd been quick enough with my camera to get a shot of his red Christmas tie.  

With the drive-way taken care of, we had time for a quick sugary breakfast,

before getting dressed and heading out to our 10AM combined stake sacrament meeting.

I loved having Christmas on a Sunday.  I loved dropping everything to go to church.  The snow was crazy and beautiful.  We greeted lots of friends and my heart was full of everything Christmas as we quickly found seats in the primary room, where the proceedings from the chapel would be shown via video feed.  The camera wasn't yet focused on the pulpit, so we could hear, but not see.  I bowed my head for the invocation and tears quickly filled my closed eyes upon hearing President DeHart's voice offering the prayer.  Who better to petition Heaven's attention than someone who had spent his Christmas morning plowing people's snowy driveways.  And it wasn't just that morning's snow plow that filled my heart with tenderness.  There had been dozens of plows before that,  not to mention major sprinkler repair, and car service, and of course a host of poignant talks over the pulpit.  Hearing President DeHart's voice invoked gratitude for all those years of service and was a beautiful start to that Christmas Day meeting.   

We joyfully sang hymns and prepared for the sacrament before anyone in the chapel adjusted the video camera, so it was a similar surprise to hear our Bishop's voice blessing the sacrament bread.  My heart filled with love and gratitude again, hearing that second voice we knew so well and trusted so much.  

It made me think: we don't always need to see. 

Sometimes a voice is enough.

If it's a familiar voice.

Well known and trusted.

Like the voice of the Spirit, whispering peace and love from our attentive Father in Heaven - our Father who knows how to give good gifts to his children, and whose greatest gift was the reason for our Christmas Day rejoicing.  

After church, we trekked back home through the blizzard, changed back into pjs, and resumed the examination of previously opened gifts.  

Until Lucy remembered that mysterious stack of presents by the piano with the tag that had said, 

"After church, open me first"

The note said something about memories being the best kind of presents and gave a specific order for opening:

WHO

WHAT

WHERE

&

WHEN

Inside the giant WHO box we found all of our names,

and a little something new to wear.

There was a WHAT box for everyone.

Each had a Road Trip coupon and included some goodies and activities that would be just right for a long drive...

 WHERE was next...

(Where else?!)

... and the last big question was, of course, WHEN?????????

Such happy anticipation!

We enjoyed a few more hours at home, 

Before taking Grandma Truman's hand bells to Uncle Brent's for a traditional evening of homemade Christmas pizza.

Christmas 2016 was definitely one for the books!

  

Christmas Season

We had such a very happy Christmastime.

Favorite moments include our friends giving us last minute tickets to a Tuesday night performance of "Savior of the World" in SL.  We drove up right after school to meet Grandpa in a parking lot near the capital building.  He had brought McDonald's to share, so we sat in the car and ate hamburgers and fries and laughed together before piling into one car and heading downtown.  I've seen "Savior of the World" several times over the years and was expecting another nice performance, but this year was a particularly beautiful rendition, and Elizabeth was so much like Mom that tears just couldn't be helped.   

We loved the "Light the World" initiative this December and had many sweet related moments throughout the month, but one of my favorites was the evening when Spencer cleaned Lucy's room while she was at a birthday party.  Like really cleaned it.  From folded clothes to wiped down baseboards, to new command hooks hung in the closet as a solution for her spare jackets.  All topped off with a note on her bed and a Christmas bow taped to the front of her door. 

Lucy and Spencer spent a few December hours perfecting a simple flute +  bells duet to play for a few of our elderly neighbor friends, and later at the Veteran's Memorial home.  Their performances were all very nice, but I especially loved the minutes of concentrated practicing.  I loved Spencer demonstrating for me the "proper" way to tap the jingle bells so the sound was crisp and even ("This is how my music teacher does it"), and working hard to switch between his two instruments at just the right moment.  Serious business.  

Next to Christmas Eve, December 21st is my favorite night of the year.  We usually spend the day running Christmas errands, making happy deliveries, and cooking up Norwegian meatballs.  Then we eat our "family birthday" dinner by candle and Christmas-tree light.

After dinner we write down our testimonies to tuck into Wes's Christmas stocking and we finish off the evening with a Christmas movie marathon & sleep-over downstairs. This year, Lucy and Spencer had prepped the basement for our slumber party by hanging Christmas lights g a l o r e.  We loved snuggling up under an enormous silky-soft blanket our friends had brought over earlier in the day, and the festivities were topped gloriously off by the loss of Spencer's first front tooth.  

There were inevitably quiet moments of reflection mixed in with all the merriment and movie watching.  Five and a half years since losing Wes feels like both an eternity and a heartbeat.  Some things have gotten easier with the passage of time.  Some things have gotten harder.  But those Dick Van Dyke lyrics I heard for the first time the night Wes died still play in my heart regularly:

What makes the battle worth the fighting?

What makes the mountain worth the climb...
To me the answer's clear; it's having someone near;

Someone dear,
Someone to care for; to be there for.
I have you two!

Someone to do for, muddle through for,

I have you two!

"Muddling through" feels like the great summation of my life right now and I'm so grateful for the joy and companionship Lucy and Spencer provide along the way.

We watched The Muppet Christmas Carol for this year's sleep-over,  and with each telling of that familiar story (we always watch/listen to two or three versions a year...it's Spencer's fave), I can't help pondering again and again and again the great wisdom of Scrooge's resolution:

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me."

And with every pondering, I make the same resolution:  to live in memory of the past, but not without mindfulness of the present, and hope for the future.

I thought for a few minutes about watching It's a Wonderful Life after the kids were asleep on that anniversary night.  But it was enough to curl up in the pink armchair next to them and remember:

Yes.  

Yes it is.  

We went up to Dad's the next evening and he was ready with the checkerboard set up and a supper of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches made with the homemade bread someone had dropped off as a Christmas gift.  I love him.

Christmas Eve was as happy as always:  driving all over town to find cranberries (to no avail)...Dad taking the kids caroling to a few of his neighbors...baking a Christmas cake with Spencer until he got distracted juicing every orange in the house.

Christmas Eve festivities at Brenda's were fun as always.  I made it through the recording of Mom reading the Nativity just fine until hearing her voice sing Joy to the World.  

Lucy was an angel and Spencer was a shepherd as usual in our family play.  She had also been Mary at our ward Christmas party a few weeks earlier and I admit to a swell of emotion when I realized that this would be her last primary nativity.

After dinner at Brenda's, we drove home to Payson through Christmas Eve snow.  The kids were excited to open their new PJs,

But the sweetest surprise was a package from Grandma Truman,

with a sweet note and christmas candles for each of us.  We lit them ceremoniously and sang a Christmas Eve rendition of Grandma Packer's "This little gospel light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!"

And that was one of the sweetest Christmas moments of ever.  

Before bed, Spencer used his candle as light to write a quick note to Santa, "Sorry we don't have any cookies, but anyway Merry Christmas."  When he set out the note, I chuckled and showed him a plate of Christmas cookies a neighbor had delivered for us. "Well!" he said crumpling up his letter, "We don't need this anymore!"

After tucking the kids into bed, I sat with Dad in the quit, candle-lit living room and wept over a beautiful letter my brother Mark had sent along with the sweet figurine of a girl and her "tuft of flowers."

Those were treasured Christmas moments.

And then it was time to get busy in the workshop!
Whitney arrived in time to help with wrapping, and to share some peppermint ice-cream, and it was a festive, happy, late night.  

.
I finally sent Dad and Whit to bed and finished tip-toeing around the Christmas tree, setting the table for breakfast, arranging gifts in everyone's "spot" (the way Wes never liked... "they all go under the tree!" he'd say).

In those still moments, with the snow falling silently outside, I compulsively moved baby Jesus from the fireplace mantle to the middle of the room, with the words of a favorite Christmas hymn pulsing in my heart:

The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome him.
The nobler part of all the house here, 
Is the heart, which we will give him; 
And bequeath this holly, 
And this ivy wreath,
To do him honor, who's our King,
And Lord of all this reveling.