Christmas Is Here

After all of the concerts, devotionals, parties, treats, and plays--Christmas finally came.  We were able to pick up Ben and bringing him to our apartment on Christmas Eve until the day after Christmas which was great.

We went to see the movie "Puss in Boots."--fun, made Ben and Gary laugh out loud from time to time. 

The seats at the theatre have really been upgraded since we were kids!

Then we did our traditional Panda Express dinner which we started since it was only four of us for Christmas Eve.  Even with the four of us, it was still nice to read the Christmas story from Luke 2.  I love listening to Jena read the familiar words.

I decided to buy new stockings because it was impossible to unpack our old ones and I didn't want to use grocery bags like last year.

And still doing Christmas Eve's pjs---I am not sure why, but this year I wanted Jena to finally get her matching pjs.  (The shirt came in a week late so she didn't get it at the reunion.)

The boxes were my favorites and I am storing them to use for pjs for the next several Christmases for Ben and Jena--until they don't want them any more anyway!

Christmas came without a tree again this year.  We used a small plant instead.

A somewhat white Christmas with snow on the mountains and along the roads where snowplows had plied it up.

Some samples of Jena's Christmas tags--one of the highlights of Christmas morning

Being one of those firsts "First Christmas without my dad,"  I thought alot about our parents and other Christmases.  These two things are from Gary's mom--a towel with her favorite cardinals on it that we gave her one Christmas and these little mittens that hung many years on her tree.

Of course, Christmas is about family, memories, fun, and music.  But most of all, it is about Christ!  How grateful we are for our testimonies and knowledge of Him, His birth and death, His atonement, and that fact that He lives and still directs the Church today.

Merry Christmas 2023 is a wrap!

We weren't able to go up to Syracuse because Zander was running a fever.  We work with too many older people so we try to be as cautious as possible.  It was a good thing because they had a run of illness during the Christmas break which included their first child with an ear infection followed by a second child with an ear infection plus the flu.  Elessia ended up with double pneumonia so it has been brutal for them.  Hopefully things are improving.