Christmas 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! My parents (Grammy & Grampy) and my sister Natalie and brother Jon came Christmas Eve and slept over. Lori & Todd weren't here Christmas Eve because they just had a new baby! We started the evening with one of our Albuquerque Christmas traditions of lighting luminarias. For my neighbor gifts this year I gave a luminaria kit to each of the people on our street. It was really neat to see some of our neighbors put out the luminarias when it got dark on Christmas Eve.

This is the Luminaria kit I gave to our neighbors. It explains what Luminarias are and the meaning behind them.
For Christmas Eve dinner we had ham, potatoes, jello pretzel salad, green salad, a yummy drink, and pie. We talked about Christmas: Steve shared a story about Christ as the carpenter, my dad talked about the Savior's atonement and we watched "The Nativity" a five-minute video about Christ being born. I'm so thankful for Christ and the gift he gave to each one of us. My mom talked about how he is the "bread of life" and the manger is where the food is put to feed the animals and that is where Christ was born because he is the "bread of life" and he offers Himself to each one of us if we will each but accept Him.

After we put the kids to bed we played the board game "Ticket to Ride". With all but one of us playing the game for the first time, the game took way longer than we thought it would, but we had a lot of fun!

Christmas morning the presents were stacked high with presents from Santa and presents to and from Heidi, Steve, Kaitlyn, Michael, Natalie, Jon, Grammy, Grampy, Lori, Todd, Brooklyn, & Savannah. I think the top 10 memorable gifts of 2008 were as follows (in no particular order):

1. New flat screen TV & Blu-Ray for Heidi & Steve

2. Nauvoo book from Natalie to Mom and Dad (it brought tears)

3. Hale Center Theater tickets from Dad to all of us

4. Little Polly Pocket Dolls from Grammy to Kaitlyn (she played with them for hours)

5. Electric Blanket from Steve to Heidi

6. Painting of the pioneer trek from Sam/John to Mom & Dad (it brought more tears)

7. Guitar for Kaitlyn from Santa

8. Jewelry Box from Mom to Heidi

9. Blu-Ray movies to Steve (he was like a little school girl watching them)

10. "Mr. Fuzzy" from Jon to Natalie & Heidi (Jon totally got ripped off!)

Natalie & Mom both got MP3 players and Natalie got a new camera too! Jon got an i-pod dock. The kids got lots of toys (courtesy of going to the Grand-opening of D.I. and courtesy of a neighbor dejunking exchange!) We were really blessed this year! Lori & Todd made it over in time to talk on the phone to our brother, Michael, who is serving a mission in Argentina. It was great to hear how he was doing and to hear his voice! Less than a year left and he'll be back home for next Christmas!

Christmas night there was a crazy snow storm resulting in my parents sleeping over another night. We had our annual Christmas treasure hunt where my dad puts together rhyming clues to different places in and around the house. The final gift was tickets to the 2009 Hale Theater. We each get to go to 2 shows with mom & dad! The treasure hunt is one of my favorite traditions.