Invaded by Rankin/Bass

Or at least it feels like it, as we’ve watched countless Christmas shows this season, and the Rankin/Bass ones are my very favorite. Sentimentally I lean towards Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, but Year Without a Santa Claus is a pretty close second, as I’m a huge fan of the Snow Meister and the Heat Meister as well. Jake loves them all of course, and it’s fun to watch your child be enthralled with the same stories and shows that you loved as a kid.

Last week just flew by, on Thursday night Jakey and I were able to attend the play that Golda was in, “Babes in Toyland”, which we know she has been practicing hard for, and it was really well done. Golda did a fabulous job in her part of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary as well as one of the three pigs, and she just lights up the stage, I hope to see her in many more productions as the years go on. Jake absolutely loved it, this was the first year we’ve introduced him to live theater, and this was his 3rd play this year (4th if you count the Broadway review our Stake did), by now he knows what to expect when he goes to the “movie with the real people”, and boy did he get into this one. The second act (for those not familiar with “Babes in Toyland”) has our friends Bo Peep and Tom Tom in Boogeyland, a land populated with Boogeymen chased by the evil Barnabas, who is in love with Bo Peep. Jake thought Barnabas marrying Tweedle Dum in the fake wedding was hilarious as was the line “she’s the apple of my eye”, apparently Jake had never heard that before and loudly said “apple of my eye, that’s funny” (loud enough for all near us to hear). He also was so startled when the Boogeymen appeared that he fell right out of his seat. The play was wonderful (really good children’s theater always is) but I think I enjoyed watching Jake reacted to, and get involved in the action on stage more than anything. He absolutely loves it, and we seem to be training him well in our love for musical theater (I especially love musical theater, I think Rob goes along to humor me).

Friday I had work, and we had our ward Christmas Party, Rob finished up the texturing of the guest room where we took down the wall paper, so that all the walls match and we can now paint. I like really bright colors in the house, and Rob prefers more subdued neutrals, so we compromised and are going to do the main living areas and kitchen in the more neutral tans, browns and greens, and doing bright colors in the bedrooms. We did Jake’s room and the main bath in blue, and I would like an almost salmony pink for the Guest room (which will bring in some color, but still tie in with the light blues and yellows we have in there in the furniture and quilts). I had made funeral potatoes (the ward Christmas party staple) the night before, and Rob put them in the oven low when he left to take Jake to swimming lessons. Dinner started at 6:00, and we had a nice traditional meal of ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, green salad, fruit, vegetables, cakes and pies. Jake actually ate 2 entire apples, and cake which is pretty good for him all things considered. We then had a short program which was very good, and all the kids got up on stage at the end to sing a couple of Christmas songs. Jake was in heaven, he is too shy to perform by himself (although he does rousing numbers quite unconsciously when walking through any store, or in the car, he’s quite entertaining to shop with) but love to sing with other kids. After the program, we had a visit from Santa, I still remember what a highlight the ward visit from Santa every year was as a kid. I’m not sure why I was so excited for that, but I guess it always meant that Christmas was really close. The last two years they have done pictures of all the kids with Santa to give to us after the party, which is a great idea (esp. because pictures with Santa can be pretty pricey now days). We had a great time, and feel bad we had to miss Jenny Neeley’s family adult Christmas party the same night. Having been activities chair in our ward a couple years ago and doing the ward party, I know how much work it is, and I really feel like we need to support our wards activities. I think it is particularly hard in Utah because a lot of us are surrounded by the support of our actual families, and we don’t forge the bonds in our ward families that get forged when you live outside Utah, so it’s important to take the opportunities to support, and build the bonds with our ward families when we can. We have really enjoyed the friendships we have made the last 3 years in our ward, and have made some good friends. Our ward also has a large number of older people (we have a subdivision where you must be 55 to even purchase a home in our ward) and I really enjoy having such a large number of people with such great life experience and great stories to share in our area. It was a nice evening, and considering Jake had pre-school, a play date with a friend, Shyanna came over, swimming lessons, and a Christmas party, he actually fell asleep on the three minute drive home from the ward.

Saturday we got up about 8:00 and decided that we needed to do a family thing. We really try to do an activity together as a family every Saturday, but we haven’t been doing it the last few weeks with Rob working on home improvement projects, and Jake and I decorating and cooking for the holidays. We decided to catch the 10:50 showing of “Alvin and the Chipmunks” , Rob’s mom sends us Fandango Bucks a few times a year, which are electronic gift certificates to go to the movies. We appreciate her generosity so much, and have truly enjoyed all the movies we’ve been able to see this year as a family. With the last Fandango bucks Rob took Josh, Camille, and Jake to see Fred Claus, we went to Hairspray at the $1 in Salt Lake, and we also had almost enough to pay to see “Alvin and the Chipmunks”. It was a really cute show, and we all really enjoyed it. After the movie we went to one of Jake’s favorite restaurants for lunch “Asian Buffer”, Jake love the sweet and sour chicken which he calls “chicken scrapples and special ketchup” (chicken scrapples because as Jake says “ the chicken looks all scrappled up”). We dropped the car off next door at discount tires where they rotated the tires for us, and then we went to Pet’s Mart to look at the dogs. We’re planning to get Jake a dog, because, well little boys (esp. little boys that don’t have any siblings at home) need a dog. In fact a couple month ago he was talking about baby brothers, and I asked him if he wanted a baby brother or a dog, and he said “well of course a dog”. I’ve never been a big dog person, but there is something about a little boy and his dog that warms my heart, and I want Jake to grow up with that (I think I probably read “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “Summer of the Monkey’s” too many times). I really want a lab, or a golden retriever, but Rob wants something a little smaller. They had a boxer, daushand , that they said was really gentle with kids, but I still think we need to hold off at least one more year, so Jake can be more involved in caring for his pet.

After that we dropped daddy back and home and Jake and I headed back out to get some shopping done. We had some Christmas gifts to get the Jake wanted to help pick out, one for his friend Milo, and we have Jeff’s family in the family gift exchange this year so we needed to get gifts for Tanner, Chase, Tyler, and Britton. For some reason I decided to go to Walmart, which is always an extremely bad idea this time of year, but everything was busy. Jake had a lot of fun picking out presents, and we also got the chocolate bars to get the invitations out for Jake’s birthday party this week. According to Miss Manners party invitations are suppose to be out at least two weeks before the event, although really this is such a busy time of year we want people to be able to plan to attend. I actually think Jake is more excited for his birthday party then for Christmas. After what seemed like an eternity in Walmart, we headed home. Once home we made a big batch of sugar cookies (only 5 dozen) which I did the lazy way this year and did drop sugar cookies. Jake helped me frost and put on the sprinkles, and I also made a batch of funeral potatoes for us, and some chocolate bread pudding for Sunday dinner tomorrow. We ended the night with Jake watching Christmas shows on T.V., and me attempting to make "Golden Tickets" to put in the candy bars so we can get Jake's party invitations out for Family Night Monday.

Sunday morning Jake and I slept in until almost 9:00 which was very nice, I broke the “no T.V. before church” rule Sunday morning because Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was on and then they were having a Rankin/Bass marathon, so I let Jake watch Christmas shows all morning. Rob went for a Sunday morning hike, he love to hike when it’s cold out , and I got most of the Christmas Presents wrapped and under the tree.. I stuck a nice pork roast in the oven on low to slow cook, and then made a big batch of Turtles before I went to church. Rob came home during Sunday School to stick the potatoes in the oven (and eat a few Turtles) and it was nice to come home from church to a nice hot meal, already ready for us, so we could eat immediately. Then more Christmas shows.

I can’t believe this is the last week before Christmas, I still have a few things to pick up today for office gifts, I gave my team that reports to me their gifts last week, but haven’t give my peers, and my boss their gifts yet. About 5 years ago I made my boss a tray with some of the lyrics to her favorite song painted on it, and it was one of her all time favorite gifts, she was upset last year because it got broken, so I want to make her a new one, but I still have to paint it and ceramic paint has to dry for at least 24 hours. We have a Christmas party at a friend’s Saturday, I need a hostess gifts & 2 gifts for a gift exchange for that, and a few other odds and ends. We have tithing settlement Thursday night, I still haven’t made any divinity, for some reason we signed Jake up for swimming lessons the week before Christmas, and I need to get the stuff for our Christmas dinner. We have our big family Christmas celebration at my parents on Christmas Eve, which is the big Christmas highlight, but I’ve started a tradition where we have a really fancy Christmas dinner at our house for just us, Christmas Day. Last year I did Cornish game hen, proiscutto wrapped asparagus, yams, and Christmas treats for dessert. This year I want to do goat cheese stuffed figs with proiscutto (Rob loves the proiscutto), green salad, bleu cheese pear soup (my friend Jeff made up this recipe and it’s fabulous), individual beef Wellingtons with a mushroom pate, and I’m going to try my hand at making a Buche de Noel. I’m still working on the side dish to go with the Wellingtons, I love to do something gourmet and special for Christmas. I also think I will start a tradition of doing a nice breakfast on Christmas Eve morning (we usually go to mom’s Christmas morning) and maybe let Jake open a fun family game that we can play together in the morning before we head out to Grandma’s for the festivities.

Anyway, it’s a big week ahead, and I’m have most of next week off work, and not sure if I will get to the computer to write an entry, so I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, we love you all!!!