This is how we did it!

I've been MIA the whole month because of the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. And even though we were extremely busy, I didn't forget to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas in my heart, evaluating who I am and who I want to become. But of course, that is a very private matter so there will be no blogging about that! In this post I wanted to share the many ways we celebrated the season this year.

• We decorated the tree and the house the week before Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa Phillips. Anderson didn't even notice it for a few weeks and even after he did, he was an angel about not bothering it too much. The damage done was actually done by Daddy (shouldn't he know better?) and Carter's games of catch gone awry.


• We watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional with some friends. I always love seeing the lights on Temple Square. It's the next best thing to actually getting to visit them in person.


• I listened to Josh Groban's Christmas CD Noel multiple time a day. Folks, there is a reason it was the top selling CD this month! It really is the best Christmas CD around.


• We of course hit the shops many, many, many times for the kids and others (and ourselves) with Marc doing his darnedest to make me happy with a Coach bag, only to return each of the purchases except one. This required an embarrassing amount of trips to the outlets 45 minutes away. What can I say, I don't think an expensive bag is for me. I did end up with a cute wristlet, though!


• I had very few Christmas surprises this year on the 25th--my big day was December 9th when Marc came home from a shopping trip with my brand new Kitchen Aid 600 series. He knew I had my Christmas baking to do--not an easy fete in my household--so he surprised me early because in all the years past I've used our trusty hand mixer. Can we say hello muscles?


• We, and yes it is a family affair, baked up a storm one weekend--about 500 cookies and 7 different varieties. It was certainly a yummy weekend, but I am searching for a simpler way to wish our local friends a very Merry Christmas next year.


• The weather didn't cooperate this month, and since I procrastinated, we took our Christmas card pictures in the frigid cold--30 degrees maybe. We still don't have the cards mailed yet, but I guess this year we are the one of those families that are post New Year Christmas card senders.


• In keeping with Marc's family tradition we made gingerbread houses. (from scratch, ladies and gentlemen! no box kits for us) This is actually only the second time in six years that we've gotten the houses built. The other years we've not made the dough at all or never got around to constructing so the pieces got eaten with all the other goodies. The kids were still a little young this year to help too much besides in the consuming of candy department and you'll see in the pictures that there is a reason that Marc is the Frosting Master and I am not.


• Marc and I attended his work Christmas party. Most people we've ever talked to dread the annual event of going to the work party, but we were pretty excited. For me, it was an excuse to get a little fancied up and go out, for Marc he got to see a lot of the employees that he hasn't seen since October when he started working at the newly opened clinic mostly by himself.


• We all survived our first head wound--Anderson decided after weeks of them staring in his face, to get curious about those hanging socks over the mantle. He tugged on one and it and the holder came crashing onto his head. It left a decent cut on his hairline and he could probably have used a stitch or two, but the drugstore liquid stitches and a few butterfly bandages did the trick just as well. My sister Allison helped Marc bandage him up--I just couldn't do it. For days Carter kept asking everyone, "member when Aden cut his head on dat fing?" as he pointed to where the stockings used to hang. We're not idiots around here, we immediately took the stockings down! Anyway, I think we were all a little traumatized--at least Carter and I were, oh and maybe Anderson.


• Carter learned the sign language to "Away in a Manger" and sang and signed it during our family Christmas program on Christmas Eve.


• Christmas day itself was pretty much like all Christmas days--presents, food, family, rest. It was a little too short in my opinion.

I love Christmas just like everyone else. It is a magical time of year and everything about it from the snow (for some of us) and Santa to the lights and music make it that way. When I woke up on the 26th I was sad. For some reason, and it's probably this way every year but it has never hit me like this before, the magic was gone. And it didn't help that Marc was right back to work--7 to 7. And wow, there's nothing like the end of another year to remind you just how fast time is going by. Where did 2007 go? I'm not sure, but I'm staring 2008 straight in the face and I'm hoping it holds really great things for my family and yours, too! (Especially to one of my readers who will know who she is when she reads this and definitely deserves it more than anyone else.)