Christmas Stuff

Okay, this year has been kind of a bust for this blog, but I couldn't let Christmas get away from me without documenting some of my all-time favorite traditions:

• Making Gingerbread Houses from scratch (this year they are out of graham crackers...but hey :))
• Doing the 12 days of Christmas
• Decorating the day after Halloween
• On the weeks leading up to Christmas, we all keep a mental note of our most favorite decorated homes. Then, on the Family Night before Christmas, we drive around with little "trophies" (usually these are paper sacks of Christmas cookies with a trophy drawn on them) and we take our awards to different families...awarding things like "Most Colorful Lights" or "The Christmas Spirit Award" or "Best Use of Blow Up Figures" and on and on. This is one of my favorite traditions of all-time now.
• Going to Temple Square to see the lights
• We have a gift box with a bunch of stars. You do some secret act of service, put a star in the box with your name on it, and leave the box for the recipient to find (usually on the pillow). We try to fill up the box with stars by Christmas Eve.

FHE goes undercover...

In my weekly quandry about what to do for Family Home Evening, I decided to resort to my tried and true back up plan...service. We picked our target the night before, along with forming our plan of "attack."

The kids that were old enough to cut, cut out construction paper hearts, and everyone helped color them. Bryan's job was coming up with some kind of candy bar jingle for our poster...as usual, he didn't disappoint :)

In the early morning hours of the dawn, the two older kids and I snuck over to our intended target, armed with construction paper hearts and a candy bar poster. They were half-asleep when we first got there, but when a light in the house turned on...the adrenaline kicked in and wow. I wish I could get them to straighten their rooms that quickly :)