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.