I love December

I love this time of year so much.  I love the weather getting colder and wearing coats and tights and hats.  I love hot chocolate and soup and peppermint and eggnog.  I love excuses to spend time together cooking and decorating and going to parties and events.  I love thinking about presents to buy people I love and trying to make some presents too.  I love love love Christmas music playing and cinnamon candles and smells in my house.  I love the sound of the heater going and the Christmas lights on at night while I snuggle under a blanket with my hubby.  It's all so warm and sparkly and happy.   

I think December is especially sweet this year because it's given us opportunities to spend time together as a family even though James is so busy with school and work.  Thankfully, he's almost done with the semester and he'll be done with classes for-e-ver!  Yay for our hard-working husband/dad!  He did manage to take some time out to put up our Christmas tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  He bought the tree on sale while we were still dating and it's beautiful!  So glad we can share it as a family now :)  Ethan had a blast decorating it, which is why the fun ornaments are at the bottom.

     






























 




This is what Lilah did while we decorated...  She LOVES looking at the pretty lights on the tree!

And this is what Lilah and Daddy did after the tree was up...  Love it!

This last weekend we went to the Festival of the Nativities, which was beautiful!  Every year people bring their nativities to this church where they display them with Christmas lights and pretty tables.  There are probably 100 different nativities set up and it's amazing to see.  There's also live music in the chapel that you can hear while looking.  This year I accompanied four women with stunning voices to sing Christmas songs.  Mom and Scotty came with us and it was really sweet to be there with family. 

Ethan was in charge of photography to try to keep him busy.  I let him set up our nativities at home and it was a good chance to talk about Jesus' birth.  The other day I came out and he had put all the figures in the nativity set in a circle around baby Jesus "so they could all see him."  He loves to talk about Jesus and I think he gets that Christmas is about when Jesus was born.  He's excited about presents too, for sure, but we don't really talk about Santa.  Anyway, here are some of the nativity sets... 

 

That bionicles one is just crazy.  And the last one had live goldfish.  But mostly it was a very nice reminder of what we are celebrating all month.  I also love this time of year because it gives us opportunities to think about the Savior and to celebrate our relationship with Him.  I've talked to Ethie more about Jesus this month than I usually do and his tender little spirit eats it up.  James sings him a U2 song called "40" at night and I was playing it on the laptop (I added it to my playlist so you can hear it if you want).  Ethan came in and started singing... "I waited patiently for the Lord; He... heard my cry.  I will sing, sing a new song.  How long to sing this song?  How long?"  I love the spirit of Christmas in our home.