Here is where I download my thoughts and pictures of our life. I save them. It makes me happy. And the kids benefit from it. I don't feel like my blog will be famous ever. Why should it? We don't do extraordinary things. But we capture the ordinary. Sometimes the ordinary that could be lost forever. What a blessing to have this outlet. And I'm impressed that here it is, over a decade later, and I'm still doing this. Sure...I'm a little behind. But who cares? I will persevere. This is my little Everest. And I can climb this mountain.
The weather outside is pretty frightful today. It is not snow and wind, but instead, fire and wind. The Pole Creek fire is burning its way through Utah. Smoke fills the air and homes are being evacuated. Mother Nature knows how to wipe the slate clean, but we humans tend to resist since we build our homes more permanently. Rain would be a blessing right now, but I don't believe it is in the forecast at all. Ironically, hurricane Florence is ravaging the east. I think they would like some sun in their neck of the woods. How crazy that we can each be suffering from extreme weather although it is so different.
Let's slip away for a moment and go back to a snowy morning full of joy. Christmas is a strange, but beautiful holiday. I love Christmas for being Christ's birthday and being able to celebrate his coming to earth. But most of the traditions we have don't quite connect. The gift giving is fun, but it doesn't really imitate the three wise men. Holidays are often just an excuse to do what you would like. We try to make things special, but part of me always wants to skip the presents and go on a cruise. But that isn't in the spirit either. I haven't figured out that best way to celebrate Jesus. So we continue to have our Christmas morning the way it usually is. And don't get me wrong. It is still a blast. There is definitely benefits to thinking of someone else and searching for a gift to make them happy. That is always worthwhile.
Santa came. He always uses Santa paper to wrap his gifts. Looks like everyone made the nice list.
The girls will sit outside our door and sing Christmas Carols until we wake up. They are super cute. Parents get to go downstairs first and make sure everything is okay. Tyler starts a fire and then we are ready to cut the ribbon (metaphorically) and release the hounds.
This year, something was blocking the chimney. We tried a fire, but smoke just filled the room. (Ah, see, there is a connection to current day.) So we ended up improvising with our fire.
Stockings first. This picture makes me happy. So much of my life is sitting here in this room, opening gifts.
I think the kids talked us into opening all the gifts before breakfast. Sure, why not? We don't have so many things under the tree that we can't wait a few minutes to eat. We had to stop and play with some gifts. When Ivory got a huge sequin blanket from Santa, everyone took a turn drawing on it. (I love that June wrote Spanish on it. We had just barely started Duolingo at that point.)
This year, instead of trying to get pictures of everyone opening their presents, we just took some pictures at the end with gift highlights. Everyone was happy with their gifts.
June's phone was definitely the highlight for her. Some gifts were put to use right away. I love Robyn's flamingo bedding.
The whole day was really chill and I'm not saying that because it snowed. We played games, including some Spikeball indoors. Ivory made a snowman at one point.
And she even lost a tooth in the evening. I've never thought about it, but the tooth fairy doesn't get the holidays off. Not even Christmas.
Such a Merry Christmas it was. Robyn had done the window just a bit before. She didn't quite finish it and she was already planning on cleaning it off for the New Year project, but I liked this little tree that made it on the window briefly.
What a happy day. People were kind to each other and that is better than anything I opened. Kindness is the best gift you can give.
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