Christmas Traditions and Interruptions

Jason loves to work on a puzzle in December with a Christmas movie playing in the background. (Which, this year, turned out to be "Elf" about 1,001 times, but whatever makes him happy.) We started on a Rudolph puzzle, but switched mid-December to this Charlie Brown puzzle because I saw it online and just had to have it for my sister.

Thanks to some extra effort by our entire team, we were able to finish the puzzle by Christmas Eve. We were aided in this quest by the fact that our fearless leader, Jason, was stricken with 9 kidney stones and unable to go to work for several days. We would GLADLY have taken a little extra time to finish the puzzle had it meant fewer stones for Jason. But unfortunately, no one offered us such a trade. Sometimes you have to play the cards you're dealt. And I think Charlie Brown would agree with me on that.

We also have a tradition of going to see a Christmas play as a family. This year's play was "Juanito Bandito's Christmas Carol." I missed the Christmas play last year due to some health problems, and Jason wasn't able to go this year because of kidney stones. So maybe next year we can have a December that is free of ER visits and where we are all actually able to go to the Christmas play. Or... maybe not. But an ER-free December is definitely a tradition I'd like to shoot for going forward.

With Dahlia's favorite character, Grizelda, after the show. 

Christmas Party - With More Visitors!

Grandma Torgerson's Christmas Party is known to be pretty epic. This year was no exception. We hosted the party at our house and were so excited to welcome the Pennsylvania cousins, Caprie and Sadey, this year. What's cuter than cousins in matching Christmas jammies? Nothing.

Our other exciting guest was Theo, who was able to meet his cousins for the first time. Dahlia got to hold Theo for the cousin picture, so I negotiated a quick photo opp for Mickey with Theo (to avoid days, weeks, months and potentially years of upset that Dahlia got to hold Theo and Mickey didn't). Kaylene was pretty excited to have a picture of both of her handsome grandsons.

So.... most of Jason's siblings have caught the photography bug - and one of the night's many activities centered around who could take the most artistic picture of Rooney in his Santa suit. (Yes, I have a dog, who sits on my furniture, sleeps in my bed, gets his own stocking on Christmas morning, and has a Santa suit to wear at family parties. I'm that girl now. Although I'm not quite sure how this happened to a nice girl like me.) This was my favorite entry in the Rooney Claus photo contest, because he looks content and lazy and like "You want me in a Santa suit, fine. I'll just be here on the couch by Jason looking festive then."

The party was fun, we had way too much food and way too many fun activities planned. But the highlight was the ugly ornament exchange (Mick ended up with a fashionista fox with furry tail that certainly qualifies as an ugly ornament and now hangs proudly on our tree) and the minute-to-win-it games. Merry Christmas to all ... and to all a good, LOUD, fun, LOUD night.

Family Fun - With Visitors!

Some of my most favorites came to town for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert in mid-December. Including MY SISTER!!!

I love the Christmas concert for the music, the dancing, the decor, and the overall splendour. This year I especially loved guest artists Sutton Foster and Hugh Bonneville.

And my special guests - Tricia and Aunt Jilene. Jilene and my Aunt Laree had always talked about coming to the Christmas Concert together. After Laree passed away, Jilene decided to make the trip in her honor. Tricia played her cards well by wearing a scarf Aunt Laree had given her. We were all surprised when Sutton Foster sang "Sunshine on my Shoulder," which was one of Laree's favorites and which Tricia and I sang at her memorial service in Seattle. Not a dry eye for any of us. Because we certainly didn't come to the concert expecting Sutton Foster to sing John Denver. But she did and she did it so well.

Tricia and Grandpa went with Carly to her Gingerbread House Day at Kindergarten. And can I just say how much I love Carly's pink glasses?

Biz and I took Christmas flowers to the cemetery for Mom and Annie. And can I just say how much I love my cute sister?

Super Saturdays

December gets so busy! I very much enjoyed Livi and Marissa in their ballet performance of Snow White. Their clever dance studio marketing person has flowers to buy at the ticket table, so you're almost obligated to pick some up. Brilliant fundraising idea there.

Jason, Tay, my Dad and I enjoyed the inaugural Beehive Classic basketball games - although I did NOT enjoy the ticket purchasing experience which I believe took up 2 months and 37 hours of my life that I will not get back. You can see the arena was packed - which I blame on how difficult it was to actually get tickets.

Dear NCAA, 

If people want to come to your events, you should sell them tickets. It's not a difficult concept. Sincerely, 

Frustrated. 

We also enjoyed Dahlia's dance performance - although I never did figure out the Happy Ninja Christmas connection. But she's a cute ninja, who certainly loves Christmas. So there is that.

A Picture Easily Worth a Thousand Words

I have nothing to add to this. I think it speaks for itself.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 2nd Anniversary (what?!?) to the ones who make it all worthwhile.

Giving Thanks 2017

Jason and I took advantage of a transition in his family's "every other year" Thanksgiving plan and spent the weekend celebrating our anniversary early in Park City. The kids stayed at our house the Wednesday night before, so we got most of our Christmas decorating done and were up semi-early Thanksgiving morning to watch the parade together. 

We had our turkey dinner at Cracker Barrel, where a mystery stranger was kind enough to pay for our dinner. We were probably supposed to "pay it forward" and set off a chain reaction of kindness that went viral and put the West Valley City Cracker Barrel on the map. But we didn't. I scribbled a little thank you note to the mystery stranger and asked the manager to deliver the note after we left.

It's been uncharacteristically warm in Salt Lake City this fall, so the mild temperatures in Park City were fantastic for some pre-Black-Friday shopping at the outlet mall on Thursday night. We spent Friday window-shopping on Main Street in Park City and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants (Main Street Pizza & Noodle). Then we went to see "Wonder," - a movie that was so fantastic it made me want to rush out and buy a THIRD copy of this awesome book. We went back home on Saturday to transition (slowly) back into work-mode by Monday morning. It was a very relaxing and fun getaway. I wouldn't want to skip the traditional family Thanksgiving dinner all the time - but it sure was nice to get some extra time for Just Us this year.