Christmas Odds and Ends

Somehow the stars aligned and we found an evening where we had the whole family home at the same time. It's rare. Most likely a Sunday night. And somehow I was able to convince everyone, including Bryan, to decorate gingerbread houses and men. The results of our decorating were varied.
Take a look....

Brandon decided to raid his stash of odds and end batteries, circuits and other such electronic pieces and make a cyborg out of his gingerbread man. Well, clearly this would keep anyone from snitching treats from the finished product. Bryan got out his trusty exacto knife and carved out the mouth and using non-traditional (but still edible) decorations such as almonds and coconut...made his creation more of a "gingerbeast man."






















The girls were more traditional. Rebekah and Julianne opted to work on the actual gingerbread house.

And a few more Christmas-according-to-my-iPhone type of random shots....

Lilian wrote a letter to Santa at school. I love how the items on her list start small and work up from there. The boyfriend request I think was more to get a rise out of me. Not to say that she's not interested in boys because oh my, SHE IS! She's six-years old and already sharing boy stories just like her older teenage sisters.

A gift from the Relief Society on Christmas Sunday....a simple breakfast to enjoy during the lesson, on top of a cutting board to take home and re-use. The cutting boards, though? Bryan made them. 90+ of them in three different types of wood. And though the production of the cutting boards took over my section of the garage for a couple of weeks and meant I had to park in the driveway (in the snow)....they sure turned out beautifully. And I think Bryan enjoyed having a woodworking project again.

Also on Christmas Sunday....Lilian models her Christmas dress. And though I'm sure the older girls wouldn't mind getting new clothes for Christmas Sunday, Lilian is the only one still little enough to appreciate the traditional new Christmas dress. She picked this one out. Rather than fluffy and frilly, she went with classic black velvet.

The goal was to read one of our collection of children's Christmas stories each night before family prayer and bedtime. It didn't happen anywhere near as frequently as I had hoped. In fact, maybe only a grand total of three times. But those three times were lovely...just saying.

Christmas shopping did not get done as early in the season as I'd hoped. The difference this year, though was that somehow that fact did not stress me out like it usually does. But clearly Lilian was less than thrilled about shopping at Charming Charlie with me on the 23rd of December. "I'll just sit here and pretend to be a purse." Well, at least that kept her out of trouble....

As a Madrigal this year, Christmas season for Rebekah included daily performances at elementary schools, retirement homes and ward and business parties. It was exhausting...not just the performances but also just trying to keep up with homework from the many classes she was missing. But she loved it!