December Advent: Day Twenty-Two

Today we had a full day at the Elementary School. It was the last day of the year before Christmas break and there were all sorts of things going on. First we went to the school’s “Singing Around the Christmas Tree” (except there was no Christmas Tree--but there was lots of singing.) Each grade prepared a song to share with the school. Nathan went up first so I hadn’t gotten the camera settings right yet-that’s why his picture is blurry. The sixth graders sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” Tessa and the first graders sang “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer” her part was the echo. The second graders Sang “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys and most of the kids had surf boards. Ryan was an Elf and had extra singing parts. He has been working super hard to memorize all the words and also asked his guitar teacher, Scott, to teach him how to play it on the guitar.




Ada and the fourth graders sang “Christmastime is Here” by the Chipmunks. They had all sorts of really cute actions to go along with it. In between songs, the principal started asking kids to lead everyone in their favorite Christmas songs. Ryan was one of the brave souls that got up there and started singing into the microphone. He chose “Jingle Bell Rock.” We were so impressed with how fearless he was getting up there and leading everyone in the song! We especially wished we had brought our video camera for this. The fifth graders like to sing “Feliz Navidad” every year to annoy their favorite teacher, Miss Kelly. So that is what Kielle was singing. After every grade had finished singing, The school choir performed. Kielle and Ada joined the choir this year and have really enjoyed being part of it. The choir performed “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer,” “Pat-a-pan,” “Winter Wonderland” & “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” We really enjoyed watching the kids perform!



The day didn’t end with the singing though. Mom & Dad went home for lunch and then came back for the school awards ceremony where Ada received an award for scholarship. Then we went to Nathan’s class and helped with an edibe craft. The 6th graders have been studying about Ancient Greece for a while and ended their unit with Greek “Olympics”. Nathan was part of the “city-sate” of Sparta and he was a council member which meant he was responsible for tracking everyone’s scores in the various events. The had events such as discus, javelin throwing, lfoot races, and others. Nathan won medals for Sparta in tongue twisters and long jump. We had to leave the games early to watch the first grade play “The Christmas Engine that Could.” Tessa was a narrator. It was such a cute little play with several songs. She did great. Ada & Kielle had a choir party after school and then we topped off the day with Brick Oven Pizza and the BYU Las Vegas Bowl games against Oregon State. BYU won this very windy game 44-20.

December Advent: Day Nineteen

I am taking a different approach to this "advent" because some of the prompts are similar and so I feel like I had already answered them. I know I am behind and I will put pages up as I finish them, but here is what we did last night and our tradition associated with it.



We have a family tradition of going to see the Spanish Fork Festival of Lights. We have missed a year here and there, but generally have tried to make it every year. We love looking at all the beautiful lights they have on display. It is particularly beautiful when there is lots of snow on the ground. They charge $5 per vehicle so sometimes you see people bundled up in blankets sitting on a huge trailer pulled by a truck. Our family enjoys seeing the familiar favorites as well as what new things they have added. Part of our tradition is going out to Coldstone for Ice Cream afterwards. It is always cold but we LOVE it! This year we started our day with the kids shopping for Christmas presents with Dad and then Mom joined everyone for dinner at the new In-N-Out burger joint, Followed by more shopping to kill time till it got dark and then off to the lights and ice cream! We were glad we went early because when we left the lights, the line to get in was a mile long!

December Advent: Day Six

(I am still working on the photos for Day 5--coming soon.)

Prompt: Write about one symbol of the Holidays that has particular meaning to you.

We love our Nativity sets. As a wedding gift we were given a children’s nativity set. I thought it was sweet at the time, but didn’t realize how much it would mean to us through the years. It has been nice to have a set that the kids can play with and get up close and personal with the Christmas story without me worrying about it getting broken--it actually has been broken and we have had to repair parts of it and parts are missing like the tips of the wise men’s crowns or a bit of the angels wings. But that’s OK because it has always belonged to the children and over the years they have all loved playing with it.

We also were given a Nativity that only had Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Another wedding gift we received was a lone Camel made of Olive wood that one of Aaron’s college roommates, Dale Green, brought back from Jerusalem for us. Later we received a camel that used to belong to Aaron’s Aunt or Great Aunt and it came from her mission. We decided to add them to our Nativity and since they didn’t really match we have tried adding somewhat mismatched figures over the years because when you think about it, the shepherds and the wise men and all of us who come to Christ come from so many different places and we might not match up exactly, but we still belong to Christ no matter what we look like or where we come from. So that is the theme we created for this Nativity. We are still looking for one more wise man to complete that trio and are always on the lookout for pieces to add, but it is difficult to find just one piece of the Nativity.

December Advent: Day Four

I wasn't sure that anyone was reading these, but Mark, my brother, just called and asked if we had stopped. I am just a little (or a lot behind) We write down our answers to the prompts every day, but it takes a little more time to actually get my pages together.

So here is day four's prompt: Talk about a sentimental piece of holiday decor.



The bow on top of our Christmas tree is from our very first Christmas together in 1996. We didn’t have many ornaments so we went to Target and bought a bunch of ribbon and made our own bows to decorate the tree. We made several tiny red ones and this big one to put on top. It has stayed as our tree topper every year since and Aaron has always been in charge of topping the tree with the bow. It reminds us of that simple first Christmas of ours. It is a cherished memory that we recall every Christmas.

December Advent: Day Three

Think Back to a time of Holiday joy in Your Life. Where were you? Who was there?

Our First Christmas
1996

One of our most joyful Christmas Memories is our first Christmas together.We had been married for almost a whole year, we didn’t have a lot of money but we had each other and were so excited. We went and bought a big, bushy Christmas tree that overtook the family room of our tiny basement apartment in Provo. We didn’t have very many ornaments so we put candy canes and handmade bows all over the tree. It didn’t show up in our photos but we topped the tree with a great big homemade bow too. We went shopping for each other’s gifts with our friends Bryn and Dan Brody at Crossroads Mall in Salt Lake City. It was a lot of fun picking out our first gifts for each other. On Christmas Eve we made chocolates with Andrea and Gene Anaya. We were making chocolates til midnight or so at their house in Springville and then we all decided to go out to Denny’s for a late-night breakfast on Christmas morning.

The reason I bought the camera....

I definitely take more photos but Aaron takes GREAT photos like this one:

and this one:

I love the photos he takes!

December Advent: Day Two

Prompt: Do you remember making any specific recipe with older family members? What was the experience like?

We actually answered more with what our favorite food was and maybe a memory associated with it:

Tessa: Fudge
Ryan: Rolls
Ada: Gingerbread Christmas Ornaments
Kielle: One year we made green and red Jell-O popcorn balls.
Nathan: Rolls
Mom: Every year on Christmas Eve we would make a birthday cake for baby Jesus and leave a piece of the cake for Santa Claus.
Dad: My mom made cinnamon rolls baked in the shape of a Christmas tree, adorned with red & green maraschino cherry ornaments.

Today we also found some cute wooden ornaments at JoAnn's for $.50 each so we got 2 for each child to paint for their ornament collection.

December Advent: Day One

I took a free online class from Jessica Sprague called Holidays in Hand. She created a type of advent to help create a holiday Scrapbook for your family filled with prompts to get you remembering past Holidays and ideas to make this year more meaningful. I am going to try to put up my pages as I finish them here.

The photos on this page are from putting up the Christmas Tree on November 30th for Family Home Evening. We love putting up the tree because all of the kids have their own box full of ornaments and get to put their own on the tree. Every year we write down some of their favorite things about that Christmas or something special that happened throughout the year. As we put up our ornaments we all read our memories. It is a really special time for our family. Our tree topper is not a star or an angel. It is a bow from the first year Aaron and I were married and we made all our decorations on our tree. It is Aaron's job to put up the bow and we love remembering our first Christmas together and telling the kids about it. Aaron has been really busy with school and we were unsure as to whether he would be able to put up ornaments with us. As we were discussing decorating the tree, Nathan said "We can't decorate the tree without Dad, he has to put the bow on!"

The first day of the advent asked us to think of our earliest Holiday memories here are our answers:

Some of our Earliest Christmas Memories:

Tessa: Getting my goldfish and my doll, Buttercup (last year)
Ryan: When I got sad that I didn’t get an MP3 player and my sisters and brother did. Then dad helped me put together my transformer and I felt better. I still want an MP3 player.
Ada: Every year I love to cuddle up by the tree and look at the lights.
Kielle: One year the girls slept together downstairs. Ada & I couldn’t sleep so Dad brought us down some hot chocolate.
Nathan: When we lived in Provo, I remember making maracas around Christmastime in our Neighborhood Preschool. We made the maracas by folding a paper plate in half and stapling it.
Mom: When I was 5 or 6, I lived in Cary, Illinois. That year Santa hid our presents and we had to search for them. I finally found mine behind the curtains. It was a doll.
Dad: My last Christmas in California, Grandma & Grandpa Popham came from South Carolina to visit. It was a big deal. It was the first time I met them. I was 3 years old. I got a jumbo Tinker Toys set from Santa and a Farm Animals set from Grandma & Grandpa Popham. I spent hours playing with the Tinker Toys . I remember a couple days after Christmas sitting at a bar in the kitchen, making barns and stalls for the farm animals & Grandma Popham teaching me all the sounds the farm animals made.

We also were prompted to think of our Holiday Values and we came up with this list:

Our Christmas Values-
According to the Kids-
Heavenly Father, Jesus, The Holy Ghost
The Joy of Giving and Receiving
Not fighting
According to Mom & Dad-
Remembering the birth of our Saviour
Keeping the magic of Christmas alive
Spending Time as a family
Keeping low stress so we can focus on what’s important.
Making and keeping traditions.

So, what are your holiday values and what are your earliest holiday memories? We'd love to hear what you have to say.