I love the twinkling lights on top of houses and listening to Christmas songs all day long.
We got our decorations up and set them up on December 1st, Josh loved our musical decorations. He’d set them up together and made them sing all at the same time.
Julia loved helping me decorate, If I stepped back to check on something she would do the same thing and give me her opinion about it. Love this girl!
But even so, having started early, I felt that most of my time was being spent worrying about finding good deals.
After the thought of not enjoying December the way that it should be enjoyed, I decided to have some fun with the kids.
If we ever came across a Santa we made sure we sat on his lap and we told him what we wished for.
Julia always very kindly would ask for a zhu zhu pet and a unicorn pillow pet, nothing more. Josh on the other hand sounded very demanding and sure of himself. Santa I want a chu chu train..a big one, OK!. Every Santa we saw was told the same thing, they were feeling very confident about Christmas.
On December 4Th we had our ward Christmas party. This year they had a sleigh ride and hot chocolate and chili. We circled around the neighborhood for 5 minutes singing Christmas carols.
The next day Spencer brought a gingerbread house from Costco. It was mostly pre-assembled, we just had to do the fun part, eat the candy. While Julia and I worked hard decorating the house, Josh and Spence worked extra hard eating those decorations. We had great fun!
On the 6Th, we had to write our letter to Santa, by then the kids were sure about what they wanted. Since Josh couldn’t write, his daddy helped him draw pictures of what he wanted. After we were done we found the perfect spot and put them on the tree. Santa was so tired that night that he forgot to send his elf to pick up the letters. The kids were very worried about Santa, but were thrilled the next morning when they came running to the tree to find that the letters were gone and that Santa had left his elf behind to check on them and help them make good choices.
On the 8Th I took the kids to This is the Place in Salt Lake. I’ve never been there myself and it never crossed my mind to call for information. We got there at 3:30 and the place didn’t open until 6:00. I was so mad. I went back to my car and cry. An hour drive wasted and we got nothing out of it. Then in a sudden blink I realized we could just go across the street to the Zoo. My spirits went up again and I was delighted to have made this choice. We paid regular price, but I guess to see the lights in the zoo, which turn on at 5:00, you have to pay extra price.
I was nervous about dragging three kids and making them walk for a couple of hours, but boy was it worth it. Julia and Josh loved it. They hopped from exhibit to exhibit loving everything they saw, even plain old chickens.
The nicest thing about going at this time of the day was that we literally had the entire zoo to ourselves and it wasn’t 100 degrees outside either. All the animals were eating when we got there so they really performing for us. Some did a little bit too much performing.
We were at the gorilla’s exhibit and the big male gorilla was as far as the glass wall as he could be, so were waving our hands and making faces at him, when all the sudden he came charging over with a sack on his hand. OMG, I looked at Julia and Josh and they were terrified so I launched myself on top of them trying to protect them, forgetting completely where I was and more importantly the fact that there was a thick glass wall between us and the gorilla. Oh well, we all laugh seconds later
The other monkeys were adorable they came up to us and try to touch us through the glass.
And for the first time in the many times we had visited the zoo we saw the wolves.
I was also able to tolerate the smell in the reptile enclosure. As we walked out of it Josh said to me out of the blues: “mommy I don’t like snakes”, good I don’t either.
The zoo was delightful with all the lights, but the top of the night was witnessing Santa's arrival to the zoo with his reindeer. He had to rush away from the crowd of kids that were following him. We saw him and talked to him and if I didn’t know better I could be telling you right now that I had met the real Santa. We were cold but as soon as we saw him we warmed up with smiles. It was magical.
We were done about 6:00 at the zoo and I was ready to come home, but Josh had overheard me talking about a train ride at This is the Place. I had given him my word so we drove back to it(across the street) and made our way into the display.
It was definitely a special night, we saw the rest of Santa’s reindeer, visited the elf shop and got to put our names in the NiCe list. We saw a living nativity, Julia remembered that she had dressed up as a shepherd in Ecuador for my mom’s church and felt really special about seeing these other shepherds there.
We took a train ride singing carols along the way. I discovered that Julia and Josh both know the song Santa is coming to town. My heart melted when I heard their two little voices echoing the voices of the other carolers in the train. This was just the right way to finish our night
On the 16th we had my traditional Ecuadorian style Christmas party. Christmas Eve was my favorite night of the year and I am grateful that my family can all come to make this party special.
We had turkey, courtesy of Costco, a corn vegetable dish and a potato dish. The potato dish never made it because it exploded right as I hoping to move to the right. Minutes early Spencer had set the baking dish on top of a burning top and I overheated the glass. It broke into a million pieces; thank goodness no one got hurt or cut. Spencer’s brother run over to Wal-Mart to get potato wedges as a substitute, not a very fancy meal, but it turned out good.
For dessert we had hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls. After that we played a game that I had seen in minute to win it and we it was over it was time to exchange presents. This year we had Matt’s family and they had us. It was great seeing every one’s faces all lit up with the spirit of Christmas. Thanks again to my family for making this a well sought for tradition.
December 20th a Monday. Spencer is off on Mondays and we had planned to go see the lights at Temple Square. We almost decided on cancelling because of the heavy rain and snow that had been falling down for the past three days and was scheduled to get worst that night. I am glad we didn’t. It was a beautiful night, chilly but not crowded and just so clean with the new fallen snow on the floor.
We took our time looking and admiring the lights, the nativity and appreciating how beautiful and detailed the Temple looked. Nevertheless, riding the light rail to and from Temple Square was a highlight of the night.
After Temple Square we walked over to the Gateway Mall and saw the big Christmas Tree(2 stories tall) and the lights around
.
On the 21st, my sister in law Megan invited us to go see the lights in Ogden. It was lovely. Julia was so thrilled to see into the decorated shops stationed all along the park. Josh only cared about the one with Mickey Mouse or trains, if he didn’t see any he would automatically remember how cold he was. When we were done we went over to Ryan and Megan’s house for some cousin playing, hot chocolate drinking and chit chatting.
Very busy month indeed, but I am glad that we have all these memories to remember.
P.S. I started this post on December 10Th and just finished it on January 6Th
