Oak Den: A Gathering of Memories in December

Now that I am on the other side of this holiday I can think about it a little less frenzied. It doesn't matter how carefully I plan things out or how early I start my preparations, there comes a crazy time. I'm really glad that I wrote out my intentions for the month because more than once I had to chant to myself: "I Love this. It is about the Love. Love-Love-Love." It helped to remember that.

The photo above has to be mentioned. Coming home from our weekend in The City where Doug had been at a DDS conference and Abbie and I had been at Costco we drove through a winter storm, the likes of which I have never driven before. That is Doug is the truck ahead of us doing a Good King Wenceslas so we could follow in his tracks. What should have taken us 2.5 hours to drive took us almost 5 hours! I was white-knuckeled by the time we arrived at home and we were both exhausted from such a long drive. Needless to say, we put the studded snow tires on the van before our next drive through the mountains.

On to more pleasant memories: Abbie had a dance recital which was lovely. I only had my little purse camera with me so the photos are all blurry, but kind of cool looking. A real sense of motion, dontchathink?

Our home school co-op had our Christmas party and the children performed an abridged version of A Christmas Carol. They did a great job.

At our Ward Christmas party Santa and Mrs. Claus came for a visit and were sweet as can be.

The day after our community Messiah production we headed back to The City to celebrate my Mother's 83rd birthday. We met with my brother and his family and had a birthday dinner at Guru's- Mom's choice. I have a pretty hip Mom!

Gramma talking with Sam about a book "her missionaries" put together about the time she and Dad had as mission president in Dominican Republic

One of the things Abbie and I do for my Mom at Thanksgiving is to put her tree up for her and get her house ready for Christmas. Then we go back in January and put it all away. This year Mom said she wanted to get new tree decorations. So on the evening of Black Friday we went out to some craft stores to see what was left. Mom told me her vision, and so we bought a bunch of schtuff and I went at it, hoping the vision in my head matched Mom's and that I was able to create it in reality. This tree is the result and I think it turned out very pretty.

It was fun to do!

We went to church with Mom on Christmas Sunday, but left after Sacrament meeting. But not before I took a picture of my Momma...

...and then we took a Christmas Sunday picture of us by Gramma's tree:

Then we were off to our next adventure.

So here's a new question for you: In December, when one is keeping regular life going, and one also adds Christmas and all the activities and details that involves, what ELSE could one add? Especially to the days just before Christmas? A reunion? Is that what you answered? Yes. That is correct. Oh, and one detail: you are pretty much in charge of planning it.

You see, Doug has a sister and family who live in Alaska. There is also a niece and family who live in Alaska. When I found out these two families were both coming to Utah in December I said to Doug's other sister: We have to have a reunion. It had been 4 years since our last one, so this just had to be. I found a house in Midway to rent and everyone was so good to make this happen on the Sunday-Tuesday before Christmas. We flew Doug's Mom up from Arizona and had just about everyone in the family there at least part of the time.

It was a great time together.

We came home on Tuesday and unloaded and shoveled more snow and slept the sleep of the exhausted, then got up on Wednesday and took care of this kind of real-life thing:

And then our boys came home Wednesday night and were home in time for one of our traditions: opening a Christmas book wrapped under the family room tree and reading it. Sam read two that night: