Merry Christmas!!!

 This week, we had a lot of traditions to keep up with. 

We showed off the Christmas songs we've been working on during a family zoom meeting last Sunday. June played "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" and Gwen played "O Christmas Tree".

There were several great musical numbers on the Zoom call, and Grandma Sandy shared a poem she wrote that included the names of each and every grandchild. 

We had another Zoom meeting with my extended family. My Uncle Ray (my father's brother) shared a thought he had about Grandpa Beck's coin collection. He collected pennies from any and every year, shiny or not. But the most interesting penny was the 1943 penny. Because of the war, pennies in 1943 were made of steel instead of copper. 1943 was also the year that Grandpa Beck volunteered to fight in the war. Uncle Ray then talked about the Beck legacy of rising to the occasion when times are tough. The Beck family motto has always been "We do hard things!" He talked about life during the pandemic. It is undoubtedly not as tough as life during WWII, though I never want to minimize the pain people have felt this year because there has been plenty. But he called on us Becks to rise to the tough occasion and to see where we are needed and to help and do the right thing. It was a really great message.

Back to the traditions:

We made sugar cookies.

We built a snowman.

We went caroling. As we have in the years past, we dressed up the kids like Rudolph and then sang Rudolph. This year was our best singing yet, mostly due to the lack of stiff competition from other years. Gwen and June finally sang all of the words this year, and it contributed greatly to the cause. Of course, the fact that it was pouring rain the whole time we caroled on Christmas Eve sort of detracted from said cause. 

We read a lot of books. There were many, but here are some we will repeat every year.

I believe we have read this book three years in a row now. Barbara Cooney is my favorite author/illustrator-of-all-time-the-end-amen.

Another favorite, and we've probably read these stories every December for four years now. Maybe one of these years I'll remove the price tag.

This was a new one to use this year, and it was really really great. Will be repeating.

And of course! The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (the shorter, picture book version). Always makes me laugh when they talk about stealing a baby from the grocery store and then the end catches me by surprise and melts my ice cube heart a bit.

I tried to dress up our rather casual dining situation by using the fine china, black chargers my mom gave me during her last visit and real, cloth napkins. I noticed a marked improvement in my kids' behavior during the meal. I need to do this more often.

Christmas Eve is always crazy. We went caroling, we took meals to people, we ate dinner ourselves, and we had a special Christmas Eve program with just our family. In the middle of this, the girls realized they never wrote letters to Santa and were busily writing any chance they had. We finished our 25 Days of Christ ornaments. We acted out the Nativity with puppets. We sang carols. We watched the Christ Child movie. And then we put kiddos to bed. Dan and I stayed up and prepped the living room for the next day while watching my favorite, White Christmas. And yes, I made it through the whole thing and didn't fall asleep once, all of you doubters!

Christmas morning:

Dan put a scavenger hunt together for the kids to find their initial presents. The first clue was in their stocking, and they were able to figure it out pretty well.

A friend gave us a big wheel they didn't want anymore, so all we had to do was buy a new battery for it. Harris' face was amazing.

Rollerblades for the girls. We have a lot of work to do before proficiency takes place with these!

The girls in their new robes:

Sewing kits from Grandma Kristi. Now if only a mom who knows how to sew came with it . . .

The hotly-debated Wii.

June is really good at tennis. Gwen is really good at boxing. Which surprises no one.

The mail system was just not great this year. My mom mailed this to us two weeks before Christmas, but it did not arrive until the day after Christmas. But it was fun to get another present after Christmas was over.

I am sure people everywhere chilled all day the 26th. But chilling some of the day on the 25th made me pretty antsy. There were presents everywhere, and I hadn't figured out to store them, and I always feel like the Christmas decorations start to taunt me the second Christmas is over. I woke up on the 26th ready to get to work.  Much to Dan's chagrin. He was a good sport though and helped me (read: did all of the bad parts) with the following projects:

• Installing extra shelving in the pantry, linen closet and master bathroom closet.
• Installing extra hooks in the garage for storage.
• Finish painting kitchen chairs. (Lots of drama with these dang chairs. More on that later.)
• Taking apart the kitchen stools we just put together to add a layer of vinyl to the seat for easier clean up.

(If you're taking notes at home, yes, this means that I decided that we should work on all of the chairs we sit on for meals. At the same time. This was a terrible idea. We've been crowding on a single bench ever since.)

• Buying and installing new shelves for the food storage downstairs.
• It was about this time that I started to lament over the bookcases I want for Dan's office. They were out when he went to IKEA. I tried ordering them online. They are not available. Wasted an hour on this fruitless endeavor.
• It was about this time that I started to panic about our lack of 72-hour kits. We've been working on long-term food storage but don't have short-term kits available. Watched youtube videos and made lists but nothing bought. 
• It was about this time when I realized that I never contacted anyone about getting some work done on the basement. Made an appointment for next week.
• Installed broom holders in the pantry.
• Cleaned the bathrooms.
• Walmart run.
• Hobby Lobby run.
• Repair toilet paper roll holder.

If you're thinking "WOW that is a ton and how did you get it all done?" Well, we didn't. Dan did a ton of work while I ran around thinking of more projects and buying things for more projects, but of course nothing got done. I'm just trying to paint the picture of what it's like to be married to a maniac. 

At the end of the day, Dan said to me "We are going to have a busy Monday. I knew you were going nuts but I didn't do my job to stop you and now we have to finish all of this stuff next week."

He probably can't wait until he goes back to work in a week.

And today, SUNDAY! And one of the best Sundays of the year. The best Sundays are, in no particular order:

Christmas Sunday. Easter Sunday. The Primary Program Sunday. AND the Sunday we sing RING OUT, WILD BELLS. In other words, today. 

I know this hymn is controversial. I know many who do not like it. They are wrong. It is the best.

We still aren't singing but I am the organist so I was able to play it, and I played it SUPER loud and spookily.

Ready for church:

The End.