A few of my favorite Christmas things, and a few memories, too

I guess that I am not unique in saying that I love Christmas! I don't know anyone that doesn't. I thought that I would share some of my favorite Christmas memories with everyone.

I don't know that I have just one favorite childhood memory. I can remember my sister waking me up early every year to check our stockings. We would always have to wait for my brother to wake up before we could open presents (and it seemed to take him forever!), but we could sneak a peak at our stockings without waking anyone up. There are a few presents I remember... a 7-up can radio, flannel nightgowns, a diary with a lock, a new doll and stroller. One year my dad made us girls a table... one just our size. Mom made us a cute tablecloth to go with it and got us a set of dishes. It was really warm that year and we took that table outside that afternoon and played for the longest time. I'm not sure what happened to that table, but I would love to still have it.
Every year on Christmas Eve we would act out the Christmas story. I would always be Mary, Kristi was always the angel, and Eric was always Joseph. We would dress up and Dad would read the Christmas story from Luke. Then we would get to pick one present to open. One year we thought it would be so much fun to open all of our presents and finally succeeded in talking our parents into it. It was lots of fun, until the next morning and there was nothing left to open. We never did that again!

When Barry and I got married we started a new tradition of going out and looking at all of the Christmas lights. This has become a highlight for the kids now as well. It's not uncommon to be driving down the road and hear one of them yell out, "Right!" or "Left!"... which means to turn that direction to see a lights display. When we lived in Nashville we would go to Opryland Hotel ever year to see the lights, and we decided to go again this year. I'm really excited to share this with all of the kids again.

We always put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving. We currently own a 7 1/2 ft. artificial tree, but when Barry and I first got married we decided that we would go out to my parents' farm and cut down a cedar tree. We were so proud of that tree! It was beautiful, and we had so much fun shopping for the decorations (all of which I still have! I'm such a pack-rat!). Our tree had been up for a few days when we noticed this sack-looking thing on the trunk. After talking about it for a few days, Barry decided that he would remove it. He layed down under the tree and took a swipe at it with a screwdriver. He got rid of it alright... hundreds of baby praying mantises came pouring out of it... and on him, and quickly spread all over the living room. I must say that I was the model of decorum running around screaming to the top of my lungs, "kill 'em, kill 'em, kill 'em!!" We didn't have any bug spray in the house, so we thought that we would Lysol them to death. It worked pretty well. We also attacked them with a vacuum cleaner, which also worked. We cut down our tree a couple more times after that, but always made sure that there were no critters living in it before it came home.

The kids now have the responsibility of putting the ornaments on the tree. They still have not quite mastered the art of spacing them, but they do a good job. I have to say that I love all of our ornaments, but I do have a few favorites. On our first Christmas as a married couple, my mom got us a "First Christmas Together" ornament. It is always one of the first to go on the tree.


Barry was born in Germany, and his mom gave us these beautiful ornaments that she got while they lived there. They are also included among my favorites.


My oldest sister started a tradition years ago of giving everyone ornaments for Christmas. She always tries to fit them to what the kids are interested/involved in at the time. So, as you can imagine, we have LOTS of soccer ornaments! Here is just a sampling of what we have:


One of our family's favorite Christmas movies is "A Christmas Story". This year I found an ornament that I just had to get:


Don't you just love it?

A few of my other Christmas favorites include my new Josh Groban CD, Noel; the smell of Cedar and Balsom candles from Yankee Candle; making cookies with my kids; making my Christmas cards and just spending time with friends and family.

I also love going to the Stake Christmas Festival, and appreciate all of the hard work that so many put into this. We are planning on going tonight, and it will be Barry's first time going. He has had to work weekend nights the past few years so he has not been able to go with us. I'm looking forward to sharing this with him.

Merry Christmas everyone!