It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

The Christmas season has come. We have busy with all sorts of holiday events. We took advantage of the first free weekend in December and went to a Festival of Trees at the Sandia resort. We grabbed some dinner and then headed over to the Bugg Lights in Albuquerque. It's a fun driving and walking display located at the Menaul School. We enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas devotional that Sunday night. Caelan and I went to handbell concert last weekend. Sean has busted out three holiday puzzles so far and is ready to get crackin' on another one this week. Last Monday night we went Christmas caroling with two other families. We hit 6 houses and then ended up back at the Hataburda's for hot chocolate.

Then this Friday was our ward Christmas party, which Sean was basically in charge of (his last Woodbadge ticket). We did a "Christmas Around the World party." I wish I would have gotten pictures of the decorations: different Nativities from around the worlds, map pendants hanging across the room, rolled maps to look like Christmas tree cones for the table center pieces, a big world map with the words: Joy to the World and a hanging pinata. It looked great. We had dinner: ham, potatoes (I peeled and cooked 70 lbs of potatoes that afternoon), rolls, salad and a variety of desserts. There were three presenters talking about Christmas traditions in different parts of the world, intermingled with three musical numbers. The Bishop said some words and after we closed we had the kids take turns whacking the pinata, which they loved....and luckily we came away with no injuries. YAY! It was a success! The next day Sean flew to CA for his Grandma Anderson's funeral. I went to the girls dance performance of "The Nutcracker," which was super cute (too bad Austin wouldn't fall asleep so I could enjoy both acts....at least he was good enough for me to see all Caelan and Megan's dance numbers). This week is a baking week and finishing the last little bits of shopping.