Christmas Traditions

December is such a busy time of the year! We have had a lot of fun spending time with our family and friends celebrating the holiday season. Allie suggested that recording some of our family's Christmas traditions would be a great idea for a blog post. She has been little disappointed by the number of posts recently.

One of our family's favorite traditions to kick off the Christmas season is new Christmas pajamas and a Christmas book for the children on Thanksgiving night.

We decorated our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. We were a little worried about how we would keep Landon from pulling the tree on top of himself, however, he has been a very good boy. As of this morning we have only had one ornament casualty this year. That's pretty much a record for this house.

Allie has been begging me all year long to buy an advent calendar that has candy in it. We bought both of the kids their own and it has become a fun morning tradition. It was a great $2 investment because I have learned a very important lesson about my daughter. For some time now I have been thinking that she had a serious issue with remembering things that should be a part of her every day routine (you know...homework, making her bed, brushing her teeth, etc). Would you like to guess how many days she has forgotten to eat her piece of candy before she heads out the door for school? That's right. None. I'm on to her now. "I forgot" is not going to fly around here any more.

Another tradition our family enjoys doing during the holiday season is giving service. Over the years we have participated in a wide variety of service opportunities. This year we made blankets for the Linus Project and Allie and I also made toy cars for the Humanitarian Services of the LDS church with the Activity Day girls.

A Christmas tradition that Eric and I both love is the adults only Christmas party that both of our extended families have. We have been abundantly blessed with many, many children in our extended families (our kids have 35 cousins and counting!). The opportunity to spend time with only the adults is something we treasure because it only happens once each year. It's amazing what you can find out about your siblings and parents without the distraction of small, demanding children present.

Every holiday season we go to see at least one family friendly movie. This year Allie is really looking forward to seeing "The Tale of Despereaux". She was a big fan of the book and can't wait to see the movie!

Here are a few more of our favorite things for the holiday...

• Driving around and looking at Christmas lights. This year we went to the Festival of Lights in Spanish Fork and we hope to make it to Thanksgiving Point before the season is over.
• Aebelskivers for Christmas breakfast.
• Attending the Ward Christmas Party.
• Each member of the family gets to choose a new ornament from the store for the Christmas tree. We have quite an eclectic mix!
• Watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.
• Baking and delivering sugar cookies to friends and family.
• Breakfast on Christmas Eve morning with friends.
• Playing Bingo!

Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert

Tonight we attended the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square Christmas Concert. It was really difficult to get tickets this year. Luckily for us, my sister Angie was one of the "chosen ones". Not only did she get selected to receive tickets, but she even got really great seats. Thanks for sharing Angie! We were lucky to have my Brother, Paul, and his wife, Jenn, offer to tend our children. And while we're dishing out the thanks, thanks to Mom, Dad, and Marci too. We enjoy spending time with all of you!

Swain Family Christmas Party

This morning we had our annual Swain Family Christmas Party. We have a traditional meal each year that is a lot of fun (and a lot of work) to prepare. We have aebelskivers, a delicious egg casserole, fruit, meat, and hot cocoa. Yum! This year I helped cook the aebelskivers with Scott and Karma. It was a lot of fun. We even learned that Scott could toss an aebelskiver across a large room and land it on someone's plate with pretty reasonable accuracy. I think Landon was held by nearly every Swain cousin today. That's really something considering that he has 30 of them. He is a good sport to let everyone take a turn with him. We hardly knew Allie was there. She disappeared to the basement and only surfaced for a few short minutes to scarf down a little breakfast.

Later on we had an after the party party at our home. Allie, Larkin, Caleb, and Amber had a good time preparing themselves a meal and playing some more. It is so much fun to see these cousins loving every minute together. I hope that they always treasure these relationships they share. It has been so great watching them grow up together.

Allie's Christmas Concert

Tonight was Allie's highly anticipated Christmas Concert. She attends a weekly choir class in our neighborhood taught by Ruth Ellis. Ruth does a great job picking musical arrangements that are fun for the kids to perform and lets them show off their little personality's. It is especially fun for me to see because the choir is largely comprised of my Primary children. (Sometimes it's even fun to see them being a little bit naughty for someone else! It makes me realize that what they do in Primary is totally normal.) Allie LOVES to sing and we really enjoyed being at her concert tonight. Way to go Allie!

HANGING OUT BEFORE THE CONCERT BEGINS.


SNEAKING IN A LITTLE WAVE.

(Oh, and the kid with the biggest grin is our neighbor Caleb. I love watching him at these performances! He is equally animated for our Primary program every year, but it's a little more appropriate in this setting. Some of you will probably remember his springtime performance... what a kick in the pants!)

LANDON LOVES TO WATCH ALLIE DOING ANYTHING. HE WAS TOTALLY INTRIGUED.


I LOVE SNEAKING IN SNUGGLES WITH HIM...IT DOESN'T HAPPEN NEARLY OFTEN ENOUGH.

B-U-S-T-E-D

I think I am going to start calling this kid Houdini. So much for an impenetrable barrier. At least he hasn't toppled the tree. Of course, there are still 14 days 'til Christmas.