Christmas Time

Oh Holy Night, I’m so far behind on my blogging!  And I’ve seriously been working on this blog post for WEEKS, but with work, and sickness, and WORK (“Nothing but work work work all the time”—movie quote anyone?), I haven’t had time to get it all typed up. So here goes a LOOOOONG (picture overload) one…unless I get bored in the middle of it, then I might just speed things up and only give small, unimportant details instead of the meaningful and interesting memories I had hoped to remember of Christmas 2011.

I started my holiday season out by going to the Festival of Trees.  This festival involves hundred of trees that are decorated and donated for auction to benefit Primary Children’s Medical Center.  The trees are put on display and all of the money received from auction and entrance fees go to this well deserving medical facility. I’ve gone before but this year was emotionally hard for me as I realized what each of the trees symbolize.  Quite a few of the trees are decorated and donated by friends and family members in memory of their loved ones that have passed on.  A lot of the trees are in memory of children. 
                          The trees are decorated BEAUTIFULLY.   
As I walked down each of the aisles looking at the trees decorated in teddy bears, Barbie dolls, or Superman, I fought back tears (at times unsuccessful) as I imagined all of the heartbreaking trials that people have gone through represented by these trees.  But at the same time, what amazing FAITH, PEACE, and HEALING is also represented in the glitz and glam sparkling on the trees.  The Christmas season is, after all, a time to remember the Savior who made it possible for all to live again. He is the one that provides the healing and peace needed to get through unimaginable trials.

There were a lot of trees that I loved:  




Our next bit of holiday festivity-ness came with a trip to a Christmas village with Dev’s parents.  A bunch of mini houses were decorated with Christmas scenes in the window.  I was a first timer to this.  And I might even like it more than the lights on Temple Square (*gasp!*) Most of the houses had little ledges for the boys to stand on and do some window peaking to see all of the little details inside.  


We made Gingerbread houses with my fam:
My sister’s kids and husband--

My oldest brother getting into the building process--

I included this pic for one reason: Check out the muscles in his arm. He must work out --

Here’s my youngest bro. He may look funny, but he’s quite brilliant.

And here’s Dev using his masterful painting skills on the roof of our house--



What were Nate and Cam doing while we were busy decorating?
Enjoying some frosting!



We saw the lights Temple Square and this was the only non-blurry picture I took. Nice--


We played with, and under, the tree.  When I was a wee little girl my favorite thing to do at Christmas time was to lay down under the tree and look up at all the lights.  I’m glad to know that I’ve passed this tradition on to my boys.  I would frequently see them crawl under the tree and lie down on their backs and look up at the lights.  They loved to point to all the different lights while I told them what color it was.



 

And then the big day finally arrived!
The boys didn’t completely know what was going on, but they did pretty good and ripping open the presents if we helped them.
We opened presents first as a family.





We then headed over to Devin’s parent’s house after church
We opened all of the presents and made a huge pile of the wrapping paper. The boys had a blast playing in it--

All of the Farr’s--

Then we were off to my parent’s house…but I don’t have pictures except for this one. Hmmm….We had a good time though--

And here’s a random picture I found, but it was cute so I had to include it because there aren’t nearly enough pictures yet in this post--


With so much mention of Santa at this time of year, our boys picked up on what Santa says.  Anytime they heard the word “Santa” or anything that sounded like Santa, or saw Santa…or saw a man with a beard like Santa we heard “Ho Ho Ho” coming from one or both of them. 

Ho Ho Ho

They also discovered bells at Grandma and Grandpa Farr’s house.  Every time they would shake these bells, someone would sing “Jingle Bells.”  It got to the point that if they (specifically Cameron) started shaking the bells, you had better start singing “Jingle Bells” or else he’d come up in your face and shake the bells until you felt the Christmas spirit and started singing along.  Even now, when he finds a toy that sounds like bells, he wants “Jingle Bells” to be sung.   

Well that about sums up the Christmas season. More to come on additional activities that we’ve been up to. And plenty more pictures to share :)