Christmas Faces


This collage captures all of our Christmas faces! Here's the re-cap of the festivities:

Days Prior to Christmas
  • Went with Maria and Marcos to see the lights on Temple Square. We parked at the Trax station in Sandy and then just road Trax to the downtown stop. Such a breeze to not have to find parking! This picture of me and Maria has got to be one of my faves. I think we're getting cuter as the years go by!
  • Finished the stocking stuffers and last minute wrapping, successfully jamming the scissors into my finger. Nice. Just a band-aid injury.
  • Snow, snow, and SNOW! We had to shovel a bunch of times.
Christmas Eve
  • We got a call from Ems and Shaun this morning to tell us that Shaun's Grandpa King had passed away. Shaun and Ems and Alexis ended up driving all night Christmas Eve from Nebraska and got to my mom and dad's at about 3 in the morning! It was so neat to have them come out for Christmas even though it was sad for Shaun to lose his grandpa.
  • "The Program." We have a tradition of doing a little Christmas Eve program with my family. My dad gave us a quiz on little-known words to popular Christmas carols. My mom taught us a 4-part song by the Transiberian Orchestra. Greg and I did a puppet show with Molly the Cow and Herr the Hippo singing "White Christmas" by the Drifters. Sarah and Dave brought their homemade pipe chimes for us to use to play some carols. Mike and Seve had us sing "The 12 Days of Christmas" with funny actions to each verse. My dad's action to "10 lords-a-leaping" was the best! Stace and Mike read us a Christmas story that they had written and illustrated themselves. What a talented family we have!
Christmas Day and Days following
  • Slept in until about 8:15 or so!
  • Brigham and Alexis stole the show of course! It's fun to watch the family grow and add grandkids. There will be two more next year and we are outgrowing the basement! My dad said it's probably time to move the fooseball table into a different room. He's probably right. Each time Alexis opened a present she said, "This is what I always wanted!" Brigham got a red tricycle and as soon as Sarah sat him down on it he grabbed the handlebars and started turning them and making the sound of a motor. So darling!
  • Greg surprised me with an ipod. As always, he knew exactly what he was getting. (A bag to put his new gun in.) One of these days I have to surprise that boy.
  • We went to visit Greg's mom and dad around 1:30 and stayed until about 8:30. We had a delicious roastbeef dinner and exchanged gifts with them. (I don't know why...but we forgot our camera! So when they send me some pictures I can post them.) Greg's dad gave us the neatest present! It needs a little background: all of the girls, even Greg's mom, have our maiden names and married names that both start with 'H.' Sharon Hadley Halliday. Angela Hobbs Halliday. Chantelle Halliday Hogge. Lisa Hurst Halliday. So, Greg's dad (whose hobby is making model trains) made us all our own railroad cars on the "H & H Consolidated" railroad. Each train car has the initials of the parents (so GE and LJ for Greg Eric and Lisa Jane) and then when we have kids, they get a train car with their initials as well! Isn't that cool?
  • When we got back to my parents we played some games and sang carols around the piano. I got really silly with Stace and Ems and we stayed up late laughing. I was already starting to lose my voice and that totally put it over the edge and I couldn't even talk the next day.
  • The day after Christmas we were practically snowed in! The boys got us all snowblowed and shoveled out and then Greg, Mike, Mike, and I went to Impact Guns to shoot Greg's new gun on the indoor range.
  • The next day we all went to see "Bedtime Stories." I love how the Junction has reserved seats for movies! It's nice to just buy them ahead of time online and then just mosey into the movie and find your seat.
What a fun Christmas...as always. Greg and I are blessed to have such great families and friends. Of course, none of it would mean anything if it weren't for the gospel. That's why we both love Christmas so much: because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. That's the true meaning of the season.

Comments

  1. Sarah BrownDecember 29, 2008 at 9:51 PM

    Lis,
    Your Christmas Faces collage is great. It was way fun being all together. The picture of you and Maria is darling.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MariaDecember 30, 2008 at 12:22 PM

    I love the collage! One year I did something like that in my scrapbook because I had so many pictures. It's a cute idea! Sounds like Christmas was great. I love the traditions you guys do on Christmas Eve. I think if we start doing Christmas dinner with Mercedes instead of Christmas Eve, I want to do our own family traditions at home that night. I have a cousin who dresses the family up and does a reenactment of the nativity on Christmas Eve so that night is more spiritual since Christmas morning is so geared to the presents and Santa. Anyway, it's cute that everyone came up with something fun to do Christmas Eve to showcase their talents. And yes, I think we're getting cuter by the year! Marcos often tells me that. He's biased and a super big kiss-up, but still...yippee to that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mike and StacieDecember 30, 2008 at 6:19 PM

    I love the Christmas faces too. My favorite is Dad's Christmas face because it really is his Christmas face! It was so fun to spend a couple days with you guys. Love ya!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Shaun and EmilyJanuary 5, 2009 at 10:32 PM

    It was so fun to play "my right foot" with you and stace and have a good laugh!

    ReplyDelete

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