Our Christmas Celebrations

December 23rd:

We have a little tradition (like most families who live in the north half of Utah) of going down to Temple Square and seeing the beautiful lights. We also have a tradition of meeting one of Matt's mission companions while we are down there and catching up with him. His name is Matt Neves. Since Neves had to work, we hit Temple Square a little earlier, planning to meet up with him after for some dinner. We also took Matt's mom, Elaine, down with us. Her and Steve had a big date night planned and since Steve works in Salt Lake she rode with us and then we took her to his office. His accounting firm just moved into a new office and we got to tour it before we headed to Temple Square. 

These are the only two pictures I managed and the first one was taken in the parking garage. Keldrie was quite taken in with the Angel Moroni on top of the temple. She kept talking about it and would get upset if we were at an angle where she couldn't see it. She also wanted to get out of her stroller, and I was not about to let that happen with the crowds down there. My grandparents serve a mission at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building once a week, so we got to go see them as well. After a little over an hour on the grounds, we headed back to the car and called Neves to decide on a restaurant for dinner. 

Neves and Matt decided on a place called L and L's Hawaiian bar-b-que. I've heard about this place a few times and once Neves suggested it, Matt started to salivate. He hadn't had it since early in the mission. So off we went to eat there. We all had some good food and then it was off to Trolley Square. We thought it would be really busy there since it was the 23rd of December, but not so. In fact, it was a little sad how not busy they were. 

On our way out the door, we took a few pictures. 

December 24th:

We followed a little tradition from Matt's family of giving a 12 days of Christmas present to Keldrie this year. She got mostly candy for the first 11 days but on the last day I gave her a water-color set and she was so excited about it. 

She painted by herself for quite a while. It was nice as it let me get some last minute stuff done. 

Later in the afternoon, we made brownies together.

These were for my Grandma's traditional Christmas Eve party. Keldrie had a blast playing all night with her cousins and Matt and I enjoyed playing a very intense game of Catch Phrase with the grown ups. 

After the party, we had to come home and open one present on Christmas Eve. This is a tradition from my family. Each year we would get pajamas and each year my mom would deny that they were pajamas until we opened them. 

Then we all put on our pajamas and headed to bed. We needed to make sure we were asleep before Santa Claus got there and had to skip over our house. 

Christmas:

Santa Claus was very good to Miss Keldrie this year. She got the Rapunzel dress and doll she had been asking for and also got the pink camera she wanted.  

I made something new for breakfast that I think will become a family tradition of our own. I don't really know what you would call it, a Cinnamon Sticky Bunt Roll Cake? Anyway, it was really easy and super delicious. It is also super sweet and sent my blood sugar quite high. 

Of course, we did have to have some hot chocolate with it as well. 

For church, we decided to go to Steve and Elaine's ward since they were singing in the choir and we were going to lunch at their house right after. Elaine's mom, Grandma James, lives real close to us, so we brought her with us as well. The meeting was very good and even Keldrie was pretty good. 

Afterwards, while dinner finished cooking, each of the Grandkids got a present from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

The book has already seen quite a bit of use. She loves it. 

After the kids were finished, we gave Steve and Elaine their gift. It is a semi-circle depiction of their family history. It went back 6 generations I think. I think they liked it because Elaine immediately took down something else and hung it on the wall it it's place. 

After dinner and some more playing with cousins, we headed over to my mom's house where there was more food and more presents than Keldrie could ever need. But next year she will have to share the spot light with her little brother, so I guess I'll let her have this one.

By this point in the day I was too tired to take more pictures, but we had more fun at Grandma Keller's and then came home and had still some more fun. Two days later my body and my house are still trying to recover. Yikes! Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We sure did!