A New Year

It’s been a busy and full week, but fairly uneventful. Shalae and Jon returned home to Savannah on Tuesday, so Monday I spent as much time with them because it was their last day.

One of the things we did was go out to Jon’s mother’s house and help her with some decorating. She recently remodeled her kitchen, using a nice Mellow Moss color scheme.

Since she LOVES paisley, we used the Paisley stencil to create easy, simple accents. She wanted something subtle, so we added a little cream paint to leftover paint, and stenciled a tone-on-tone random pattern along the top of the wall.

She loves it, and I thought it looked great too!

On Tuesday, we took the Browns to the airport, and I only cried twice! Shalae says she misses us too, but since she’s “suffering” in 68 degree temperatures, I don’t feel sorry for her at all! (We’ve had freezing temperatures and snow storms here much of the week!)

The rest of the week was busy as I focused on preparing for leadership and the regional next week. I’m getting very excited as I’ve worked on projects and finalized the messages and communications.

Last night Sterling and I welcomed the New Year in together. We went to dinner early, then came home, changed into our jammies, and watched a movie. After the movie, Sterling started channel surfing, and we had fun watching different entertainers performing on the different New Year programs. It was a peaceful, low-key New Year’s party—just the two of us.

Tonight we’re off to the Gardner Grand, which I’ll tell you all about on Sunday or Monday! 

 

Christmas 2009

I can’t believe Christmas 2009 has come and gone already—it went way too fast! Tomorrow we start another work week, and I’m not quite ready to give up the holiday festivities.

One thing I need to do is blog about our Christmas happenings. That way I at least have a record of the things we did and I can treasure the memories.

I mentioned earlier that we’d decided to give our children (and grandchildren) the gift of money this year, which freed up a lot of time. However, we did not give Shanna money. As most of you know, she returned in October from serving a mission for our church, and she recently moved out into a nearby small rental house.

Her Christmas wish was to have Shalae and me decorate the house. She’s not into decorating nearly as much as we are, so she gave us a budget (she’s been saving money) and turned us loose. We supplemented her budget with Christmas money from last year and this year. To get the biggest bang for our buck, we spent most of our time in antique shops, searching for great deals and a look that we knew she would love.

On Christmas Eve morning, Shanna came to our house. We’d made a deal—you tend the kids, we’ll surprise you on Christmas morning. So she played with the kids, and Sterling, Shalae, Jon, and I headed over to her house. We had a great time—Jon hung, wired, and rewired; Sterling picked up and delivered and unloaded and hauled; Shalae and I dusted, cleaned, and decorated. We had a ball!

About 5:30 that night we took a break and headed over to Sean and Sara’s house for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities. (Megan and Sage were both with their other families; we know we have to share, but we definitely missed them!)

We enjoyed a delicious array of finger foods (the kids love it because utensils are not allowed!), a Christmas movie (this year it was Christmas Angel), hymns, the Christmas story (this year we read a book while the younger kids acted out the story with felt figures from a preschool nativity set), and the opening of one gift each (usually the gift is pajamas).

At about 10, the Douglass kids went to bed, and we took the Brown kids back to our house and put them to bed, then Jon, Shalae, and I headed back to Shanna’s—we weren’t done yet! We ended up not leaving her house until 5 on Christmas morning (we’d made her sleep over at our house)! We got home and had enough time to grab a way-too-short-nap before the kids got up around 7 to see what Santa had brought!

We had put up a mesh gate in the hall so they couldn’t get to the family room, where the gifts were, and they waited as patiently as little children could while we got ready to usher them in.

Finally it was time, and we all enjoyed opening our gifts.

Shanna, in the meantime, was also waiting as patiently as a big girl could—enjoying watching everyone but pretty anxious to enjoy a tour of her newly decorated home! We finally took pity on her, made toast to go, and headed over for the grand tour (where we met Sean and Sara and their kids), still in our jammies. 

She was pleased, which made all our hard work worth every minute!

Later that day we gathered again for traditional Christmas ham dinner, with the works! We ate until we could eat no more, and then managed to stuff a little more in! 

The rest of the day was peaceful and relaxing, with lots of thoughts of gratitude, love, and joy. I hope your day, however you spent it, and whomever you spent it with, was full of the same!

A Quiet Moment

It’s quiet today, and as I was straightening up from the festivities of the week (I promise I’ll write more about that later) and listening to Christmas music, I felt impressed to sit down and write a few of my thoughts about why this season means so much to me. I hope you don’t mind me sharing them with you.

I love the emotion evoked from listening to the music of the season, I love the sights and smells (and sweets) during the month of December, and I especially love the time spent with family and friends during the holidays.

When it comes to gifts and gift-giving, I smile when I watch the delight in our grandchildren’s eyes as they open their presents, and I’m gratified to know the gifts we give our children at Christmastime are appreciated. I want the gifts I give to friends and family to show I love them. And admittedly, I enjoy receiving thoughtful gifts from loved ones.

The gift I love and don’t make the time to appreciate like I should is the one reason we celebrate this season—the gift of that special baby boy born so many years ago. I’m grateful for Jesus Christ and the many gifts He’s given me—the wonderful life He lived here on earth and the example He set for me to follow, the teachings He taught that I can read in scripture, and His ultimate sacrifice in atoning for my sins, to name only a few. These are the gifts that matter most this time of year—and all year long.

The gifts I give pale in comparison, but I can give more and I can give better. One of the gifts I wish to give my Savior is a kinder heart toward others. It should be a simple gift but isn’t always, so I’ll start there for now.

I hope you’ll find a quiet moment today to ponder what makes this season special to you and to maybe choose one more gift you can give that really matters.  

A Shorter Shopping List

We’re doing something this year that’s liberating—we’re giving our children and grandchildren money instead of actual gifts.

Now, I’ve never wanted to be that kind of person—the person who just gives an “impersonal” gift of money or a gift card. But when we asked the children for a list of the things they wanted or needed (we don’t give them everything they ask for, of course, but we like to have options), the lists were long and varied—and expensive!

One of the girls suggested money so that they—and the grandchildren, who are getting old enough to want gifts that cost a little more too—could put it toward purchasing a pricier present. Initially, I rejected the idea, but then we thought about it. I remembered as a young girl, one of my grandmothers always gave us a little cash, and I looked forward to it every year because I could go shopping and buy something myself.

With that memory in mind, we decided to try it this year and see how it goes. I don’t know why I’ve always thought money was such an impersonal gift, but I must admit that I’m sure enjoying the fact that my shopping list is a lot shorter! Since we’ve given ourselves permission to go this route, I’ve been able to relax a little bit more and enjoy the days leading up to Christmas. I hope you’re enjoying your holiday preparations too!

Grandma Pat's Party

Over the weekend, we had our annual Grandma Pat’s Christmas party, and it was fabulous as always! I’ve got tons of photos, so I won’t write much—the photos speak for themselves!

Grandma Pat’s Christmas is one of the holiday highlights for me because I get to spend so much time with family! The party begins on Friday and ends on Sunday afternoon—a wonderful weekend. If anything set this year apart, it was that the weather was perfect and more people came earlier and stayed later.  

We probably had 70 or more people, and most of us stayed the entire time—what a treat! We ate a lot (Grandma Pat gives out food assignments), did tons of crafting, watched a movie, and visited, visited, visited! We are a chatty family, and we don’t really need much to have fun other than each other.

We did have our regular program on Saturday night, with a few musical numbers, caroling, the Christmas story (the younger children dress in Nativity costumes), and a year-in-review family slide show. I love seeing how everyone’s family is growing and changing. 

We went to church together on Sunday, had a nice lunch, and then headed home—another Christmas party come and gone, and already looking forward to next year!