We Love Christmas!

When we looked into testing Jade for the ALPS program at school, one of the major turn-offs for me was that she'd be stuck on B track, which would have her off for three weeks right before Christmas. I thought it would be so much harder to get all my Chistmas preparations done with her home. When I talked to my sister Diane about it, she said there is always so much to do in December, she wishes her kids were home the whole month. In fact, that turned out to be true. With me teaching piano lessons on weekday afternoons, I wouldn't have had the time to involve her in so much of the holiday fun. She came with me on numerous shopping trips, we took a tour of the Sweets candy factory with Logan's preschool class and of the LDS Humanitarian Center when we dropped off some blankets. She came with me to Logan's ice cream party at preschool. We also had several holiday parties and it was nice not to have to worry about homework that needed to be done and getting up early for school.

The time went by extremely quickly, but I can defintely say that we used it well. We watched holiday movies, read holiday books, sang holiday songs, ate holiday-themed foods, and colored in holiday coloring books. I love to keep those things packed away with my Christmas decorations so that they're new again every year when we get them out.

Thanks to two very excited children, Christmas Eve was a little crazy at our house. We had a nice dinner and made an attempt at acting out the Christmas story. It ended up being a lot more complicated than I'd imagined it. Logan got his mind set on carrying the baby Jesus under his shirt like Jade. When we told him only Mary had a baby in her belly, he refused to play a part at all. He decided to sit on the stairs and yell instead. I managed to convince him to put the towel back on his head for a picture so we can look back and forget what it was really like. They wore themselves out good though, because they went right to sleep and we didn't hear from them all night.

Logan woke up before dawn. He crawled into bed with us for a little while, but by 7am he was ready to be up. He left the room telling me he was going into his room, but came back a couple of minutes later and said, "Mom, there's something cool in the living room." "Did Santa Claus come?" I asked. "Just come and see" he said. He wouldn't let it go. I had to get up, and I didn't want to go out without Jade, so we woke her up too. I think this was the earliest Christmas morning we've had so far.

There wasn't a gift they weren't thrilled with. The world sure looked beautiful draped in a layer of new snow, but it does mean they haven't been able to try out their new bikes yet.