12 Days of Christmas

This year for Christmas, I wanted to achieve two things 1) keep it simple (and relatively inexpensive) and 2) make sure that the girls got something they really wanted. Last year was kind of a bust. Even though I try, I always kind of miss the mark with their clothes and shoes. Let's face it...I'm kind of an old lady, and while I think that I'm still hip enough to pick out cool teen clothes, I'm not. So....such that neither they nor I would be disappointed, I crafted a plan. We did a 12 Days of Christmas Christmas.

The girls on Christmas morning (before the present opening began).
The 12 days of Christmas went something like this.....all neat and packaged...and painstakingly adorned with the pictures of the 12 days of Christmas on every.single.package. I printed out pages with the "clues" to the gifts on them. Mariah read each one then they opened the presents.

This gift was a "pair" of earrings.

This one was a small box of turtles (candies) and a bag of Dove candies.

This was a $5.00 McDonald's gift card so they could get their favorite meal (chicken nuggets and french fries).

This was 4 free downloads for their cell phones. We don't let them download things, so they were kind of psyched about this one. They would have been more excited about free texting, but we don't let them do that either.

This was a $15.00 gift certificate to Claire's They love buying crap from Claire's. I did, too, when I was their age.
This one was kind of hokie. I got Easter eggs and filled them with various kinds of M&Ms. Unfortunately, I could only find 12 eggs...the ones Dean got for me last Easter and hid in my office...so I gave each of the kids 4 eggs. They LOVED the candy. In fact, the next day at church, Mariah pulled out her new make up bag from her purse and it was FILLED with M&Ms! I just laughed and laughed!

I ordered rubber duckies online (24 of them). I put 7 in a box and put a $25.00 Bath and Body Works gift card in with it. I was kind of proud of the rubber duckies idea. They all bought lip gloss from BBW.

We have a cleaning lady who comes once every other week. (We DO NOT call her a maid, though.) Earlier this year I instructed her not to clean the girls' bathroom any more because they need to learn how to keep it clean on their own. They were being 1st class slobs and would say things like, "The cleaning lady will clean it." Um......I don't think so! So, now we are on a rotation....Mariah, Elle then Dom clean it...and rotate every Saturday. This gift was $20.00 (or the approximate amount that it costs to have Karen clean their bathroom). They chose to spend the cash. No surprises there!

This was a $10.00 iTunes gift card.

The younger girls have been telling me for months that they want Vans (a brand of shoe). I have been telling them for months that they are not getting Vans from me. I got Dom and Elle $30.00 gift cards to the Vans store. Riah got $30.00 to Payless (she's not as big of a fan of Vans). This was a $100.00 gift card. It can be used at Gap, Banana Republic or Old Navy. This was the BIG surprise. They got iHomes (which are devices that you can plug your ipod into so you can hear it). The only one who has an ipod is Dominique. So, Mariah and Elle were like..."uh, thanks." Then I said to Dom, "Keep looking in the box." Hidden in the bottom were the new nano slide ipods. They were quite surprised. You can see Dom's mouth agape in this picture.

It was a very good Christmas. I was worried that the hokie gifts at the beginning were not going to be received well, but they loved their 12 Days of Christmas. They have told everyone about their presents, and Dominique told me, "It was the best Christmas ever." I'm so glad! I'm so, so glad!

A few Christmas Eve images....

We had a small family gathering on Christmas Eve. It was all of us plus Elise and Garrett and my brother Adam (who was not yet here when week took these pictures).

Our Tree
Me and Dean

Mariah and Garrett
Bradley and Elise
We read the Christmas story from the Bible (Luke 2) and sang a few Christmas carols...Opened a few gifts....
And just hung out....
It was a very good night.

Best Christmas Pageant Ever

We have a tradition at our house. I can't remember exactly how it began, but that's not really important. Each year we read this book:Each year, we get just a bit of resistance, but not too much. This year Dom said, "Why do we have to read this book every year?" We said, "Because it's what we do; it's our tradition."

If you haven't read the book, you should. It's narrated by an elementary school girl and chronicles her interactions with an unruly gaggle of neighbor kids called "The Herdmans." Due to an unfortunate turn of events, the narrator's mother has been put in charge of the annual church Christmas pageant. I don't care who you are, this story is funny. We laugh and laugh every single year.

This year, it is only Dean, me, Dom and Elle reading the book. Bradley practically lives at his girlfriend's house and only shows up to sleep and eat some stuff once a day. Mariah is always busy with work when we want to read, so it's just the four of us this year. It's no less meaningful.


I hope you have meaningful traditions with your family. I fully anticipate that, one day, I will be reading this book to grandchildren.

And as Gladys Herdman would say, "Hey, Unto you a child is born!" Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Concert

It is a bitter sweet moment when you realize that we have attended our last elementary school Christmas concert for one of the kids. I look back on all of the elementary school performances, and it makes me a bit weepy. Dominique is the last one in elementary school, and I still remember her performances in 1st grade! What is even more crazy is that it seems like yesterday when we went to Bradley's 6th grade performances, and now he is a senior in high school!

Dom has been playing the violin for 2 years, and she's really improved since last year. (Last years' performances are in the history of this blog if you're interested.) She took violin lessons over the summer with Mary Ann Petersen (the violin teacher at the elementary school). She fights us sometimes about violin and has vowed not to continue in junior high (which makes us sad). But for now, we have these performances to enjoy!

We hope you enjoy them, too!

Jingle Bells

Holly Jolly Christmas

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Our House at Christmastime

It's important to me to make sure the house feels cozy and welcoming at Christmastime. Each year, I switch it up a bit...depending on how I feel. Here are some pictures of our home this year.

This first series of photos is of my display on our bookshelf. I had the idea to use the tiles from my bathroom tile job and make a beautiful display. I chose some of my favorite sayings from Christmas songs. I think it turned out to be very beautiful..much more so than I expected.

This is our tree. It looks much better in person. It's hard to get it right with the light/flash.

This is on our coffee table. I love this beautiful container. I put some filler and some simple ornaments in the container. I think it looks lovely.

I had a momentary lapse in judgement and decided to tackle Christmas cookies. It actually went much smoother than I thought it would. All of the kids love to help, and they are happy to do the baking if I'll do the cleaning. It works out pretty well. Here is a photo story of Bradley making my favorite Christmas cookies: Spritz...with the favorite "cookie gun."

This is one of my favorite spaces to decorate. It's in our kitchen. We have an oddly large space behind our sink because of the way it was built, and it serves nicely for displaying things. The two pictures are art that my mom made when I was young...as far as I can remember, we've had them. The trees are creations that Elle, Domi and I made: candy, Styrofoam

and a glue gun. Viola!

I hope you have warm Christmas memories of your home!

Dominique's Holiday Concert

This is the Elementary School holiday concert. Dominique just started playing the violin a few months ago, and it's really quite impressive when you think about it! New violinists are precious folk. This first video is "Jolly Old St. Nicholas."

This is a quick shot of the junior violinist listening to a duet. It was hard to get a shot of the kids...but this is a pretty good one.

This was the final act: Jingle Bells....applause and all....

This is the choir...and boy are they cute...singing "Deck the Halls."

This girl is SO cute....and the back up singers aren't that bad either :-)

Elle's Christmas Concert

One of my absolute favorite things about being a parent is watching the kids' performances. I don't know why, but it always makes me get teary-eyed. As I realize that the days of elementary, junior high concerts are few (the high schoolers don't play instruments anymore)...I get even more sentimental.

Tonight, Elle had her first ever band concert. She just started playing the clarinet in August, and after a few months, it's pretty impressive that the junior band can pull together a concert. God bless band teachers everywhere!

The problem with band concerts is that the lighting is horrible. Even though we were up front, the picture was still grainy, so I prettied it up with a program, and now we have "Abstract Elle."