Tradition

In my family, Christmas Eve has always included the kiddos acting out the nativity story while my dad reads from the Bible. It’s something I remember doing when I was growing up. I was usually the angel and had the correct words memorized and everything. As all the grandkids have gotten older, they have outgrown this particular tradition and in the past couple of years, we have questioned whether or not to have it continue. We have opted to keep it going for now because while most of the grandkids no longer have any interest, Malia and Kate are still emotionally invested in the whole exercise. This year we even had some older kid participation and I’m appreciative of their willingness to do so. It allowed Malia and Kate to have an enjoyable time. It was Malia’s turn to be Mary and Matthew acted as Joseph. Kate was the angel and Ella and Evelyn (my niece Sage’s oldest daughter) were shepherds. Sabrina and Drew were wise men and after a quick costume change, Ella rounded out their trio. It was a mostly reverent rendition of the nativity and one of those things that helps us all remember the real reason for the celebration.

Seasonal Eats-Repeat (and a Family Gathering)

We started off our month of activities with Christmas tree pancake stacks and they were so fun that we decided to do a Christmas Eve repeat so the older boys could partake. For some reason I just can’t get a picture of all of them looking normal at the same time. On the flip side, getting universal crazy faces presents no challenge. No matter what they look like, the kids enjoyed the pancakes. They are fun to eat, being bite-sized and all!

Christmas Eve generally means dinner at my folks’ house followed by a dramatic reading of the nativity story. As all the cousins have grown up, there have been fewer and fewer kids who want to participate in the dressing up and acting it out portion of the nativity. We are at the point where it is really just Malia and Rachael’s two girls. With some talking, we did convince Matthew and Drew to be the wise men, but our cast was small this year. Sabrina was Mary with Sam as a very inquisitive baby Jesus.

Kate and Malia were the angels. Malia was a pretty wacky angel, all hyped up with Christmas anticipation, but was reformed just in time for her big moment.

The wise men were a bit more sedate than usual (we were really trying to keep everything appropriately reverent this year) and brought presents of gold, frankincense, myrrh and Fisher-Price (to prevent the baby from taste testing their other offerings).

The Christmas Eve excitement has toned down for the boys as they’ve gotten older, but it’s still running high with Malia. She’s wide awake and trying to convince herself that she can slumber so Santa can work his magic. She has been so high energy all day that I think that once she stops and closes her eyes, sleep will come…

Deck the Halls...

....with boughs of holly

We started off this holiday season by putting up our Christmas decorations. For the first time in many years, not all the fragile ornaments were on the top of the tree! With no more babies or toddlers in the house, we were able to distribute the breakables all over the tree. Malia and her cousin Kate lucked out and got to decorate two Christmas trees each because they helped my parents decorate their tree.

'Tis the season to be jolly…

We kept ourselves busy all month with parties, games, activities, etc. We attended our ward Christmas party in which Daniel and Matthew were shepherds in the lamest nativity reenactment I’ve ever seen. All the characters just walked in circles around the stage over and over while Kevin read the nativity story from the scriptures. Daniel in particular thought it was super dumb and I don’t blame him. The party was a big success for Malia though. She got to run around with her friends and got to talk to Santa. She was super excited about the whole thing (even though she does not look excited in the picture) and was not ready to leave when the party was over.

We also went to Kev’s extended family gathering and Daniel and Nathan impressed everyone with their musical skills. This evening we gathered with my family and after dinner the little kids participated in a less-lame-but-probably-a-bit-more-sacrilegious nativity reenactment. There were fewer participants than in the past as all the cousins Nathan’s age decided they were too old for such things. However, Nathan did step in to help Malia gain the appropriate altitude for her role as the angel. Matthew and Drew were the silliest wise men ever.

Matthew and Malia were off-track all month, so we did our activity advent to keep them entertained. We made cookies, read stories, played games and did a variety of crafts. We tried to do the things the big boys were interested in on the weekends so they could participate as well.

We even sent a Christmas card and wrote a family newsletter!

Don we now our gay apparel…

My niece Sarah got married on Dec. 17 and she asked the little cousins to be flower girls so I spent much time (and only used a few swear words ;-) ) sewing a super full, totally spin-worthy dress that Malia loved. The whole wedding had an Audrey Hepburn feel and the style of the dress was a perfect fit.

Troll the ancient Yuletide carol…

I missed Daniel’s concert in the fall because Malia was sick, but we both got to attend his Christmas concert. I was very impressed! In spite of having three different directors in three years, the band program at the high school is going strong and I was really impressed with how good they are. Daniel is in the jazz band (which only has 16 kids in it including the pianist and the percussionist) and the wind symphony (which is the audition only band). Having missed the fall concert, I did not realize how few of the other sophomore bandies we know are in those two groups. It made me one proud mama. 😊

Nathan also had a Christmas concert. It is a pleasure for him to be in a choir composed of people who want to be there rather than being in one full of kids who are in choir because they hate it less than band or art. Having some desire to be there means the kids actually look like they are having fun and the choir director always chooses some super fun songs. As the closing number of the concert, all the choirs sang a song together. They sang in a completely darkened auditorium and as they sang battery operated candles lit up all around the room and up the aisles. It was a really lovely effect and a great touch for a holiday themed event.

Malia didn’t have a concert, but she did have her very first dance recital. She tap tapped and tippy toed to some Christmas music and while she said she did a great job on her tap number, she forgot her ballet number and told me so after the fact. She loved wearing the sparkly (glitter shedding) costume and had a great time. I do need to tell her to smile while she dances though so she doesn’t look so grim.

The recital was also a big night for Nathan. He is on stage crew at the middle school this year and the dance studio rented the auditorium for the evening. Unfortunately, the stage crew kids could not get into the school when they needed to and as a result, there were some technical difficulties during the recital because they had no time to do the pre-show checks that they normally do and the previous rental group had changed a bunch of things in the booth and on the stage. He was pretty stressed out. But Kev bought him a shake on the way home by way of emotional therapy and he was able to shake it off pretty well. And as a random note, Nathan is going to be cleaning up glitter for a very long time.

So it has been a busy season for us. But we’ve had a lot of fun and we’ve definitely sung some fa la la’s!