We were forced to slow down for a week when we got sick at the beginning of December. Spencer and I just got bad colds, but Mason had a tummy bug that kept us quarantined for several days. We had lots of snuggle time, watched lots of Christmas movies, and played lots of games. Not such a bad way to spend the first week of Christmas time!
I had lots of Christmas prep to catch up on once we finally felt better. Thank heavens for Amazon!! Alan and Spencer took care of the fudge making as usual.
Mason was my baking buddy for the rest of the treats: 4 loaves of bread, snickerdoodles, chocolate gingerbread cookies, and chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons. Tragically, I learned the hard way that the oven is NOT a good place to store warm bread while trying to keep it away from Kiki. I completely forgot it was in there when I preheated the over for the cookies. It was still edible after slicing off the burned side, but definitely not worthy to be given away. Boo! Everything else turned out great though and we gave lots of plates of treat, re-made bread, and bottles of apricot jam (from the summer) away.
Mason's preschool had a Christmas program one evening. The cute kids sang a few songs, Santa visited, and we had treats. Mason didn't sing, but he said his name in the microphone and did all of the actions for the songs. He kept giving me thumbs-up all through the songs. Haha! He has come a long way since the beginning of the school year! Mason was glad that we could all sit by Santa so he didn't have to do it by himself.
The boys also got to see Santa at our Ward Christmas party. Spencer's about too old now, but he was a good sport and went up with Mason. I'm so glad he did because this might be the best Santa picture I've ever taken!
Basketball games started in December as well. Alan is coaching Spencer's team for the third year in a row. He really didn't want to coach this year, but he got suckered into it again. Spencer loves having Alan there and it's good bonding time for the two of them so I don't mind. Mason gets a little sad when they're gone to practices though.
Alan's gift-wrapping methods crack me up. He gets an A for effort if not for style! ;)
With losing a week to sickness and with all of the prep that goes into traveling to AZ for Christmas, we didn't have time for a lot of fun Christmas activities before we left, but I made sure we had our shepherd's dinner. It is one of my favorite traditions and all of my boys like it as well. We talked about the shepherds and what it would have been like to be there while we ate. After dinner, I gave each person a candle. We each shared our light by sharing a simple testimony of Jesus and then lighting the next person's candle. I have been working to start more traditions around the true meaning of Christmas and this was a powerful one. Definitely a keeper!
We were also sick over Christmas- but I thought it was actually kind-of nice because it forced us to do nothing and just stay home and be together. It was a great time to be sick.
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