Christmas Season 2011

Oh. My. Goodness. Happy New Year everyone! I can't believe we are already here. December was a blur and I admit I don't have many photos to show for it because we were running from place to place. But here are a few bits to give you an idea of what we did. The first weeks of the month (while the kids were in school) consisted of school parties, finishing the Christmas shopping, making the Christmas cards as well as attending the Nativity, Ward Christmas Party, youth events and other celebrations. And THEN when the kids were out of school, they had quite a list of activities they wanted to do. Ok fine, and I wanted to do with them. :) They did make gingerbread houses at school so I counted that as done to save on my baking demand.
We made some popsicle stick snowflakes with the leftovers from doing this with my Young Women. This was in order to satisfy the kids constant request for more decorations in their room. They turned out cute and my kids are getting savvy with glue guns!



We went to Michaels one day and picked out plastic-only items to make snow globes. I didn't have any good jars on hand except for these canning jars but they worked fine. We just hot glued (again!) the arrangements to the lid, added some fake snow and they were done. It was a fun craft to do with them. They are so creative! And go figure, mine was the only globe that did NOT work. All my candy fell apart, I still can't figure out why.

We went down to the strip with some friends for Family night to see the holiday display at the Venetian which ended up being pretty lame (a bubble tree?). But afterward we headed over to Max Brennars for the best chocolate desserts EVER. So that made up for it fer sher.

On Christmas Eve I found this Lego note from Sadie by my lamp. Loved it.

I made two huge batches of gingerbread cookies and we took them around to neighbors and friends. A job I enjoy every year.

I found these Star Wars snowflake tutorials online and showed Luke, so naturally, we had to make some...

And an item I will not miss from this holiday season was our most ghetto Christmas tree EVER. We are currently "inbetwee" (Like that? My combo word of inbetween-trees). Our old tree was on it's last leg last year so I bought an inexpensive white tree during holiday sales and forgot about it until I started decorating this year. Perfect! Except I put it up to realize it's under 6' tall and I have to add lights. Hmm... worth the extra effort? Nah. I stood it up stop an urn (this could have looked all Martha if I planted it within but I was too lazy and didn't care), draped a tree skirt around the bottom (so ghetto!) and stuck my few rummaged color light strands around it. GREEN light strands. So they totally stick out. To top it off, I told the kids to put the ornaments on and that was it. Ha! Not a thing of beauty but none of us cared. Here's to hoping next year I have more motivation. That 10 months should be enough for me to commit to what kind of tree I want, right?

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was nice. We spent time with Scott's family but most of the day on our own. I filmed the events so I don't have many pictures to share, but we kept it small this year and it was nice to focus more on the value of our family and what we already have. I am so grateful for this wonderful and fun year we had, for the fun and festive end, and so thankful for the endless blessings and joy we experienced. I've reflected lately on all the people in my life that inspire me and that I love so much. I'm grateful for wonderful family and friends.
Looking forward to 2012!