Merry Christmas to All . . .

This year, our Christmas season was sweet and simple. Few lavish parties, little extravagance and no gallivanting. With a new baby in the house, simplicity was the perfect way for us to celebrate our Savior's birth. We began the season picking out our tree at a local orchard. While the evergreen was tagged and cut, we roasted marshmallows around the campfire and sipped apple cider in the country store.

We then could begin our tradition of reading Christmas stories, singing carols and sharing scriptures around the decorated tree each night, with a mug of hot chocolate warming our hands. As always, we decorated our gingerbread house, and then ate it. And this year we baked cookies, wrapped, tied and then delivered them to the girls friends.

One of our favorite memories of the season was sending our gifts off to our cousins. For our Flindt cousins, we headed to the shops with a wad of money in each child's hand. This year, each child had full autonomy in choosing a gift for one of their cousins. It was such fun to watch them carefully choose what they thought would make their cousin most happy on Christmas morning. The kids returned with a glow in the dark soccer ball, Mancala game, a pile of Hello Kitty items, and a royal blue SIGG water bottle, to name a few. We then ventured to the fabric store where the kids picked out fabric and designed bags and pillow cases for their Ebert family in Salt Lake. With varying amounts of help, the kids sewed gifts for every cousin. Each child took pride in their creations. When I sat down to cut the pillow case that Ezra was responsible for making, he realized that his project was in progress, so he came over and placed his chubby hands on mine, which were holding the scissors and pushed down, over and over, until the red material was divided in two pieces.

After the boxes were rushed out the door and down to the UPS store, we shifted our focus to our Christmas Eve celebration. With few parties during December, we were delighted to have been invited to two celebrations on the 24th. We began our night at the ward, putting on a dinner for our Family Home Evening Group, which we host each month with our good friends the Zengers. In addition to the regulars, we invited the Campbells, Jenkins and Ainges to celebrate with us. Our responsibility was to appear with three cooked turkeys. I circulated them through a huge pot of brine, into the oven, onto the carving board and then onto trays. With just one oven, this two day process kept our kitchen smelling of the feast that was to come. When we arrived at the chapel, we helped with the last preparations and then enjoyed dinner with our good friends.

Sherlyn Jenkins, Erin Campbell, Diane Zenger

Rosalee Dolan, Jane Quinn

We then stopped by Jess and Mary Alice Hatch's home for a white elephant gift exchange, Nativity play and dessert. We beautifully wrapped a pair of metallic leggins that the teenagers in the group fought over. Mary Alice, a decorator, ironically opened our lacy curtains that were the exact color of a yellow highlighter, accompanied with a design magazine. Our former bishop, Mike Dowling, hand picked and wrapped gifts for each person who attended the party. He gave me a note set, as well as lip gloss and lotion to the girls, and a calculator to Jonathan. We felt fortunate to have spent our night with our favorite people in Boston.

When we returned home, the kids opened their Christmas Pajamas from Grandpa and Grandma Ebert, a tradition that they look forward to all month long.

Before the night was over, all six sets of eyes began to droop. It took little convincing that Santa's sleigh was approaching the Boston area for the kids to climb into their beds with warm memories and sweet dreams in their heads. We all looked forward to the next morning.

Spreading Cheer

Bahm bitty bahm bitty bitty bitty bahm bitty bahm bitty bahm bitty bahm!

The sound of this Christmas season was of Emilie practicing her Select Choir pieces through out the house, with each one of us picking up the tunes, and eventually joining in. We were excited to finally hear her perform at her school during a family night performance. We agreed that her school choir definitely outperformed our family choir! She also preformed during several assemblies at her middle school. For Emilie, the highlight of the season was a trip into Boston to sing at the Massachusetts State House. She spent the day touring the historic building, singing in the rotunda for state officials and then eating lunch at Quincy Market.

Emilie has loved singing with her friends (despite the weekly 6:30 am practices), and we look forward to more performances throughout the year, both spontaneously in our home with all of Emilie's siblings joining in, and with Emilie's more polished choir friends.

Our Christmas Mouse

This year Annelise joined The Ballet Space dance school. Ever since enrollment, we have been looking forward to the school's annual production of The Nutcracker. Auditions were in the fall, and Annelise was cast as a mouse in the battle scene.

Each Saturday in October and November, Annelise attended rehearsals, perfecting each tail twitter, whisker twitch, and pitter pattering scurry across the stage.

We heard daily about her fellow furry friends, the grandeur of the rat king, and the intense battle between the soldiers and the mice that would ultimately lead to her demise. During Annelise's dress rehearsal, I followed her around, photographing her in all of her dancing glory. As any dancer knows, they must be prepared for the long waiting periods behind stage, passing the time until they are cued to return to stage. For Annelise, this was just as exciting as being in the spotlight on stage.

Annelise is already looking forward to next year's performance. Will she be a snowflake? A Chinese dancer or maybe a party girl? Which ever it is, Annelise is sure to revel in her opportunity to be on stage under the bright lights.

Thankful Hearts

This Thanksgiving, our hearts were full with gratitude for our family. After celebrating many holidays alone, we welcomed, with much excitement, a house full of Spendloves. For months we knew that my parents, along with Mike, would be celebrating the holiday with us. We counted down the days until their arrival, planning each meal and activity, and looking forward to the love that would be poured upon us. However, with just two days until their arrival, Jonny and Jenny called to let us know that they had had a change of plans in Chicago and were wondering if there would be enough turkey for two more? They jumped in the car and drove 15 hours to join in our celebration. Arriving just hours before my parents and Mike, they hid their car up the street and joined in our preparations as we awaited the midnight arrival. When we heard hushed voices and suitcases rolling up the walk, Jonny casually opened the door. The entry burst into gasps and hugs, followed by Jonny and Jenny's story of how they managed to escape a few days from Jonny's grueling first year of law school. We could already tell that this would be a Thanksgiving to be remembered!

Our feasting began early Thanksgiving morning, with pumpkin souffle cake spread with maple cream, apple slices from hand picked fruit and freshly pressed cider from our local orchard. The kids, along with their uncles, headed into the backyard for games of football, while Jenny, my mom and I prepared our feast during a long conversation that meandered from one topic to another. We called the family in, offering hot apple brew, stuffed mushrooms and butternut squash soup for appetizers followed by my fresh, wild Vermont turkey that I ordered from Verill Farms and then brined for an entire day, mom's corn bread stuffing, orange cranberry sauce, harvest salad, orange rolls, the Ebert's traditional pomegranate jello, sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes followed by pumpkin chocolate cheesecake. After a delightful conversation around the table, the family headed off to the theaters to see A Christmas Carol.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing around the house, with enough time to thoroughly catch up on each others lives. We played Ticket to Ride over and over, sewed and painted with Aunt Jenny, went on runs together in the morning and stayed awake until the early hours, fitting in as much conversation as we could. We also headed out on several outings, including an afternoon at the Science Museum complete with a tour through the Harry Potter traveling exhibit, a trip into Boston with a stop at a tuba festival and lunch at Fanueil Hall, and a day at Plymouth Plantation for our guests.

I truly enjoyed each moment we shared with my family. I knew that this opportunity to be together for a weekend would not happen often. As our guests crept out early in the morning to catch their 6:00 am flight home, I was sad to see our lives return to normal. Next time we will have to convince the Flindt family from Seattle join us, which will make your time together complete.