Meeting Santa / A Christmas Carol

The pictures tell the story - not unlike our experience getting Annie's passport photo taken.

 We were blessed with tickets to see A Christmas Carol for Dan's 40th birthday. Dayna felt so grown up! (And I think Dan just felt...old!)

One of Dayna's friends from the Singing Christmas Tree was in the cast

Christmas Program

I must say, I enjoy being on the "other" side of elementary Christmas programs. I appreciate all the work the teachers put in to make it happen, and I get to be the parent focused on one child - mine!

Dayna's music teacher did it again this year! It was her last holiday program (4th and 5th do a program at a different time of the year.) If I do say so myself, 3rd graders stole the show with their closer - complete with kick line!

Blue dress, first row, 5th one in

Could that be her arm going in the opposite direction? There's always one!

We ADORE Mrs. Hall - an amazing teacher in a string of amazing teachers

Mrs. Bebout, Dayna's music teacher - she makes a point to come see Dayna in the Singing Christmas Tree each year and supports all of Dayna's musical activities

Getting to Know You

I had a little fun in December asking my friends about some of their favorite Christmas traditions, movies, songs, etc. I felt it's only fair to share my own answers.

1. What is your favorite funny Christmas movie?
Elf

2. What is your favorite sentimental Christmas movie?
I'm quickly becoming a fan of the foreign (Finland) movie "Christmas Story" that shares the history of St. Nicholas.

3. What is your favorite animated Christmas movie?
 A Year Without a Santa Claus (and I'm missing my copy...just in case you ever need a gift idea!)

4. What is your favorite Christmas candy?
 My grandmother's English Toffee

5. What is your favorite Christmas cookie?
 Soft sugar cookies with frosting

6. What is your favorite Christmas hymn?
Hark the Herald Angels Sing (the verse that says "mild He lays His glory by, born that man no more may die" pretty much sums up the gospel)
 
7. What is your favorite secular Christmas song?  
"Baby, It's Cold Outside"

8. What is your favorite line from a Christmas movie?
 "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!"

9. What is your favorite song from a Christmas movie?
The Heat Miser song from "Year Without a Santa Claus"
 
10. What is your favorite Christmas scent?
Fresh cut Christmas tree
 
11. What is your favorite Christmas gift you received as a child (besides a Baby?)
My life-size Raggedy Ann doll
 
12. Do you have a strange or unusual Christmas tradition?
We find a night to surprise our girls after they've gone to bed, make hot cocoa, get dressed in our pajamas and go on a "Pajama Run" - looking at Christmas lights, counting nativities and talking about how Jesus is the Light of the World.
 
13. What is your favorite childhood Christmas memory?
 Going home from the candlelight service at church and seeing the flashing red light at the top of a radio tower and thinking it was Rudolph. I would hurry my dad to get home so I could be in bed before Santa. It never dawned on me that same light flashed the other 364 nights of the year.

14. What is your favorite Christmas gift you received as an adult (besides a Baby?) 
Our first married Christmas was my first Christmas to not go home. I was dreadfully homesick. My parents sent us a Douglas Fir from a tree farm in Oregon via UPS so I could have a little bit of Oregon in my apartment in Nebraska.

15. What is your best Christmas memory as an adult?
When one of my nieces pulled off the surprise of all surprises and got her sister home from Maine to Oregon for Christmas. Watching the look on my sister's face when she saw her daughter and realized all of the details that went in to pulling off this surprise.

16. Christmas trees - real or artificial?
Being an Oregonian through and through, I can't fathom ever getting an artificial tree. I'm half thinking about getting a Douglas Fir sent via UPS again one of these years.

17. When do you start listening to Christmas music?
As a music teacher, it never really ends...preparations always begin in the summer, or even before. But willingly listening to Christmas music? Probably a week or so before Thanksgiving...but only in the car where no one else can give me a hard time about it.

18. What's for Christmas dinner?
This year we were invited to have prime rib at the home of a friend's parents. I got to make the pies!

19. How do you do most of your Christmas shopping?
In bits and pieces online or on my way home from work. I do enjoy getting out at least once and seeing the hustle and bustle at a busy shopping center or mall. It feels so festive to me. Call me crazy...

20. When do you open your gifts?
The girls open one gift on Christmas Eve (usually pajamas), and the rest come Christmas morning after we've read the Christmas story from the Bible.

21. How often do you send Christmas greetings?
Every year

22. What color of outdoor Christmas lights do you like best?
I love crisp, straight white lights, as well as illuminated wreaths and trees on a front porch. I also love red and white lights that remind me of candy canes. Not a fan of crooked lights or shaggy looking icicles.

23. What color of lights are on your tree?
Red globes and white fairy lights. Again...a huge fan of red and white at Christmas.

24. If you could revisit any Christmas from your past, which would you choose?
When I was five, my grandparents came to Oregon from Nebraska. My cousins and I put on a play - The Three Bears meet 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. I also had a major part in my Kindergarten play. It was a very fun year.

December Photo Project - Part 4

December 22 - We got caught out and about and ended up at McD's for dinner. Love this man who keeps me laughing as he "takes" a selfie duck face with a McDonald's pie. — with Dan Wilson.

December 23 - making an "indoor snowman" with shaving cream and corn starch

December 24 - Finished crocheting the stocking for Little Bit on the way to church. I bought the yarn over 10 years ago (they don't make it anymore) and had 3 inches to spare! (I was getting pretty worried.)

December Photo Project - Week 3

December 15 - The second time we left the house to make it to the 10:30 service at church. We live 40 minutes away.

December 16 - says it all

December 17 - my husband takes such good care of me

December 18 - little fingers that thought 1 gift label wasn't enough for her cousin

December 19 - My sweet, disheveled family after our annual "Pajama Run" - over an hour past bedtime!

(added bonus to my "beautiful mess" - if you look closely, you'll see the empty frames on the wall. I'm getting closer - frames are up, but pictures of child #2 still need to be printed.)

December 20 - the impeccable table manners of my girls...slurping their noodles and soup just like in China.

December 21 - Realizing an hour late, while still in pajamas, that the caroling party was tonight, and not tomorrow. What a beautiful mess it turned out to be - watching my girls shake the jingle bells and spending time with friends...while hiding my wet hair under a Santa hat!

December Photo Project - Week 2

December 8 - after a year in their cases, our clarinets saw the light of day when we played for church

December 9 - the disappointment of an 8-year-old who made a list, checked it twice, and still didn't get a snow day

December 10 - the telltale signs of a little one who decorated her chair with stickers while the rest of us were baking

December 11 - holding the gingerbread steady while the frosting sets

December 12 - getting ready to install the zipper on a Christmas dress

December 13 - two very sick girls, changing the best laid plans for Daddy's 40th birthday

December 14 - trying a new icing recipe, leaving the cookies much runnier (at first) than intended

December Photo Project - Week 1

I joined a challenge this year with some of my friends. The December Photo Project requires me to post one picture every day in December, until Christmas Day. In keeping with this year's MOPS theme, "A Beautiful Mess", I decided to give a realistic look of the Christmas season in a house that is, um, less than organized.

December 1 - Before the Christmas decorating begins

December 2 - The tree is up, but the needles are still on the floor

December 3 - Walking in the door from grocery shopping when the speech pathologist pulls in

December 4 - The missing page of music that I didn't know was missing until a measure before I needed it

December 5 - Ornaments strewn on the floor that are irresistible to little fingers

December 6 - a crabby evening brought together by Daddy reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

December 7 - messy counters lead to yummy cookies