The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

Those last few days before Christmas just flew by!  We made a brief appearance at our neighbor's annual Solstice Party and I managed to stand around chatting with people.  Somehow I was hovering over a bucket of cold drinks, so I felt like I was policing everyone's alcohol/calorie intake-- I was not!  I don't care what you're drinking!  (Especially since no one was driving home!)  My middle name should have been "Awkward."  

On Saturday we joined the Sellers as they did the temple work for Akston.  It was really sweet of them to include us in such a special occasion.  We had originally been planning on driving up to the Kennedy Center that evening for the Messiah Sing-Along, but after tying ourselves in knots trying to figure out how we could do both (which SHOULD have been possible, but was made even more difficult by the fact that Bentley was working until 2:30), we finally were forced to conclude that we couldn't realistically do both, especially once you factor in DC traffic during the holidays.  I sat on it for another day or two, just in case there was some magic solution I just wasn't seeing, and then in the evening it suddenly washed over me that for this year, going to the temple was infinitely more important.  The Sing-Along will happen next year.  But this would only happen once.  And I felt so much peace once I understood that.  And it was a wonderful experience and I was so glad we could be there for our friends.

After our lovely time at the temple, Craig suddenly panicked in the afternoon that we needed goodie plates to give to people at church because if we were given treats (which seemed likely), we'd feel terrible if we didn't reciprocate.  Cue Craig's Second Baking Extravaganza!

The kids lining up to dip Oreo truffles in candy coating

He finished the truffles he'd started and also made his salted caramel Rice Krispie treats and another round of spritz cookies (with a lot of help from Kendra!).  I'd made peppermint marshmallow fudge, and the gingerbread cookies we'd made with the YW and YM were still chewy, et voilà! we had goodie plates to give out!  We stayed up way too late as I cleaned up the kitchen and Craig plated everything and wrapped them in saran wrap.  

Sunday was the really big day as far as I was concerned.  It's taken me a long time to admit it to myself, but I honestly love Christmas Eve even more than Christmas.  (Am I allowed to say that?)

We got up a bit early so I could make the turkey brine before we headed to church.  We loaded up all those plates of cookies and I even remembered to grab bread for the sacrament!  Kendra drove us all, and church itself was lovely!  Lots of music, which is exactly how a Christmas program should be.  And since we only had the first hour, everyone got to hang out and visit (and swap cookies).  I think we gave out 19 plates.  Whew!

Once we were home I even had time for a nap before the Smiths arrived.  Then it was back to work in the kitchen: we churned out mashed potatoes, Grandma's jell-o salad, faux-pecan pie, and apple crisp.  And I slipped away to wrap a few more odds and ends.  In the middle of that, we put our take-and-bake pizzas in the oven and the sister missionaries joined us for dinner and the singing of Christmas carols-- having them there made it more fun.  (Which was nice.  Usually I don't like to have extra people for this stuff, but the night before it had occurred to me that they would be fun to have around, so when it turned out no one had invited them for dinner that evening, we were happy to volunteer!)  Once we were done singing we shooed them out the door and headed out ourselves to drive around and look at Christmas lights.  We went past what used to be the tacky house and is now actually quite lovely (lots of lights, very few blow-up features), we drove out to a rich farm in Keswick where they have a free drive-through lit up situation (how awesome to have so much money and do something so nice with it!), and then Kendra said there was a cool house near CATEC that we should check out so we ventured that-a-way:

She was not wrong!  I think we stayed for 15 or 20 minutes enjoying each song that they played on their very own radio station.  At one point I glanced behind me and realized that Craig was absolutely mesmerized.

He wasn't even blinking he was so enthralled

Some day when we're rich, we'll do that, too, Craig.  Somehow.

Finally it was time to head home.  We read Luke 2 and Matthew 2 (the pertinent verses, anyway), and watched the church's nativity movie, which I find to be one of the best I've ever seen.  I love almost everything depicting the nativity-- I just think it's one of the loveliest stories ever told.  But this one is particularly well done.  (And a lot more accurate, as far as I can tell!)  And then finally, finally, we let the kids open up their Christmas jammies!

I really like this year's pajamas!  If you can't see the shirts clearly, they feature a moose with Christmas lights tangled in his antlers and say "Alaska" which seemed very appropriate for this year!  (Keeping track of whose is whose is going to be a nightmare, though, so I'm going to pay for all the matchingness!)

At some point Bentley took weird pictures with Craig's phone...

Then it was off to bed for everyone!  Bentley and Kendra surprised me by deciding to also go to bed (but I wasn't going to complain about that).  And when they all woke up in the morning, they were greeted with this lovely sight...

Ah, Christmas!

More is Merrier

I always feel like I can breathe a bit easier after my choir's Christmas concerts!  It's such a busy time of year already, and when you add in two three-hour dress rehearsals and two concerts on a Saturday, it starts to feel insane.  And doing two concerts in one day is ALSO a lot!

But the rehearsals went well.  Especially on Thursday-- it was the first time in over a month where we were singing and I was like, "YES, THIS is what my voice is supposed to do!!!"  That was a delightful feeling.  Also, we were doing the song "Christmas Time is Here" from the Peanuts Christmas special, and I'd been struggling on the opening note-- starting out a song on a quiet "e" and on the very difficult "chr" sound of Christmas is a challenge!  But with my voice finally working, it was no problem!  What a relief!

And then, as if that hadn't been great enough, as I was driving home I saw the most amazing shooting star ever!  I mean-- if I hadn't known that there were meteor showers going on, I would have assumed that I'd seen a missile or a plane crashing, it was so bright and visible for several seconds.  I needed Craig to park the truck in the garage for me*, so since he was already joining me in the garage, we stood at the top of our driveway watching the night sky for another twenty minutes or so and saw four or five more shooting stars!  Two of them were just as amazing as that first one, and the others were still amazing in their own right.  It was an incredible night.

Anyway, Craig and the kids and his parents were all coming to the 2:30 concert.  I'd gotten tickets, but by the time I bought them there weren't a lot of seats (especially for 8 people all together!) but I got what I thought would be good ones-- it turns out they really couldn't see me at all because the Christmas trees were blocking their view!  So that was kind of a bummer.  Next year I'll make sure I buy the tickets earlier!

I think Craig got this by learning way over, and before the rows in front of me had filled in!

For the most part, the first concert was really great.  The only problem was when we got to Gloria by John Rutter, I got that awful tickle in my throat that you just can't get rid of.  I was dying, I was literally crying trying to not cough and wondering if I should try to unwrap one of the cough drops I'd tucked into my folder or just run off the stage.  Seriously, what do you do???  Fortunately, the ending of the first movement is really exciting and dramatic and the audience burst into applause and that gave me the moment I needed to cough and clear my throat and after that I was okay.  (And they didn't applaud after the second movement, so that was really my only chance!)  Phew.  That may have been one of the scariest things I've ever dealt with in a concert!

After the concert was done I chatted with my family for a bit and then they headed out.  I changed out of my concert dress and Leah and I went and got a very early dinner.  We'd been hoping to eat at Revolutionary Soup (doesn't that sound lovely on your throat between concerts?) but it's closed on Saturdays!  So we headed over to Bizou instead and shared everything: the bread plate (so delicious), beet & apple carpaccio (still really good, but in a healthy way), and autumn squash pappardelle.  I had no idea what that was, and was delighted to get a plate of biggest hand-made noodles I've ever seen in a delicious cream sauce.  So yummy.  And then we got ice cream from Chaps, of course.

Changed back into our dresses and it was time for the second concert!  This time I made it through the Rutter no problem, but I did start to get a tiny bit of a tickle during Joy (a gospel rendition of Joy to the World), but that was our second-to-last song, and I got through it all and was fine.  I think our second concert was even better than the first.  Hallelujah!

Sarah and her brother Kyle had come to the second concert so it was fun visiting with them and introducing Kyle to Michael (they're both the choral directors at their schools so they were excited to chat) and I learned that Kyle did what I think would be comparable to his master's thesis on Rutter's Gloria so he was thrilled to hear it again!  That made me happy.  It was a really lovely evening.  

There's always a big party after the concerts and I usually go, but I have to admit, I really don't enjoy parties like this.  Standing around trying to mingle with groups of people is not my thing.  I love SITTING with a few people chatting, but at parties like this I always worry that the person I'm talking to is feeling trapped and trying to get away from me to talk to someone else.  I'm not good at this kind of casual mingling.  So this year I gave myself permission to skip the party.  And once I was done visiting with Sarah and Kyle I just went home to Craig, who is the only person I ever really want to hang out with anyway.  

So Craig and I enjoyed sitting on the couch staring at the Christmas tree as I felt relieved that my concerts were over.

We needed to talk about what was going with the YW and YM.  The plan had been to go Christmas caroling Sunday evening but the forecast was for nothing but cold rain all evening.  Craig proposed that we switch that with the Tuesday end-of-year party, which made perfect sense.  Then he paused and gathered his courage before asking how I felt about hosting the end-of-year party.  I looked around the house.  It was still pretty clean from the seminary breakfast and (I hope!) from cleaning up before Grandma and Grandpa came.  So I sighed and agreed that we could host it.  As long as I still got my Sunday afternoon nap.

The party went great!  Craig put together a slide show of all the activities the youth did during the year (and if you remember our summer full of Trek, Camp, and High Adventure, it was a pretty big year!), we had all the cookies laid out on the dining room table so they could be packaged up to be given away, snacks in the kitchen, and air hockey in the basement, and then the youth were free to do whatever they wanted.  We had nearly 30 people here for it, and everyone seemed to have fun, so that's a raging success as far as I'm concerned.  Ryder even got a ton of other kids to play his new Werewolf game with him, so he was in heaven.  And then it dissolved into a nerf war, which is just perfect.

Kendra, Teagan, Liberty

Wylan and Jadyn

Monday I got to do to a work lunch (!!!) which was fun, and then in the afternoon we decorated sugar cookies from Adam:

Google collage cut out most of the cookies, but trust me, they were decorating cookies here...

And then on Tuesday, when it was cold and clear, the youth all went Christmas caroling and finally got to deliver all those cookies.  Craig and I tied ourselves up in knots trying to figure out the best routes and if we should be splitting into two groups or staying all together.  Finally we decided to stay together and only visit people in the Lake, but to ask the houses we were hitting up to warn a couple neighbors that we'd be caroling to them, too.  In this way, we managed to sing to 13 houses where everyone was home and seemed to have people singing on their doorstep, with minimal driving in between, and getting to our final destination, where hot cocoa waited for everyone, within 10 minutes of what we'd told parents!  A wild success!

This house was especially fun because the youth had come here in the spring to do service, so they remembered raking leaves here!

And finally, Craig decided to take all the priests (plus Topher) to the temple to do baptisms and I got to tag along.  They're a really great group of boys, it was a pleasure getting to hang out with them for a couple hours.  

Bentley, Wylan, Aaron, Topher, and Jesse

And then with Craig and Alec Johnson, one of their advisors, added in (Alec has the best hair of anyone in our ward!)

Yesterday I got to have a marathon lunch with Sarah at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant halfway between our homes.  Today we've just been hanging out wrapping presents and making more treats since we've already eaten most of them.  The Huffs are on their way-- four of our kids line up pretty well in age and all get along really well, so they're a great family for us to hang out with. 

(Update: here are the older people, playing "Marrying Mr. Darcy" while the younger people watch Night at the Museum in the basement!  A fun time was indeed had by all!)

Tomorrow will be another temple trip, this time with the Sellers, so that will be gut-wrenching, but also I'm grateful that we've been invited to join them.  And then we'll squeeze in some more wrapping as part of the final mad rush of the holidays.

I love Christmas so much.  I hope you're enjoying a wonderful holiday, too!

*Did I mention that some guy hit Craig's truck after the adult session of stake conference?  Fortunately the man stuck around and has paid for all the repairs.  But it's still a huge pain-- getting parts these days is a nightmare, and meanwhile half the bumper is hanging off the back and the sensors are all whacked.  It makes backing into a tight space even harder!

😬

So Much Christmas

Of course we've been busy with all the holiday fun-- I'm always torn between wanting to do everything and being exhausted and just wanting to stay home.  That's not just me, right?

After being sick during Thanksgiving, I was getting better and then got worse again.  I woke up on a different Thursday morning at 4am coughing and decided it had been three weeks and my throat still was sore and it was time I went to a doctor.  Craig called me as he was driving to work and told me I should just take a sick day and not do anything, but I told him that wasn't possible.  The doctor managed to squeeze me in for a "car visit" at 9am.  

And I tested positive for Covid.  

To quote Buddy the Elf, Son of a nutcracker!  I had so many things going on that weekend!!!  I was supposed to: go to one of my YWs band concerts, see my friend's Dickens carolers at Carter Mountain, and then stop by a baby shower.  The next day I was taking off with a bunch of women in my neighborhood for another women's retreat, this time at an AirBnB in Afton.  AND there was the ward Christmas party that I was going to sneak away for!  

Obviously that was all over now.  (And I felt terrible that I'd hosted book club the night before!)  I canceled everything.  And spent the next two days in bed.  

And wow did I feel GREAT after that!  I still have a tiny bit of a dry cough, but I'm FINE.  I was sad to miss out on everything, but I definitely needed the rest more.  Having a positive Covid test is the only way to not feel bad about not showing up to anything!  

The nurse suggested and prescribed mucinex and prednizone to help with everything.  But it turned out I couldn't swallow any of the pills, so I never took any of it.  Ah, well.  My body figured it out.

So, all this to say, there have been a ton of parties, and I have only made it to some of them.  I missed Pie Night. I did make it to Soup Night.  I managed to go to the temple and see this very nice, and fairly simple nativity:

I want one for my yard!

I missed the Christmas party, but I helped Camille as she agonized over whether to be an angel or a shepherd in the primary nativity.  She really wanted to an angel with all the other girls, but her buddy Peter was a shepherd and she felt bad not joining him.  Watching her try to make up her mind about which to do was fascinating!  She finally decided on being an angel, but not before I got this cute picture of her feeling out the shepherd costume!

Nothing's says Authentic Shepherd more than a towel on one's head!

This was mostly done by the primary kids, but Ryder got roped into being a donkey, which I loved so much!!!  (When I was a kid my family made me be the donkey in our family pageant and then proceeded to laugh about it for years afterwards.  I guess it's a middle child thing, and seeing Ryder follow in my footsteps delighted me no end!)

You can see Camille in the middle of all the other angels!

I still managed to sing with Sarah in the church's Joy to the World concert, which is always a blast!  My voice wasn't 100% still, but I got by.  And I managed to not cough on stage, so that was a huge win.

I missed half of Kendra's choir concert (the half where she was actually singing, unfortunately) because I had to get to the church for our folk dancing activity (I'd asked a woman in the stake to come and teach it, so I felt like I needed to actually be there...  She did such a great job, too-- folk dancing is a blast, but it's hard to get teenagers to actually participate!  But she was wonderful!):

Colton and Camille are still weird:

Little cocoons!

I made it to Ryder's band concert, while Craig was supposed to stay at our house making cookies and other treats with the YW and YM to give out when we go Christmas caroling.  (Unfortunately, by then Craig was sick, so basically I had everything all laid out for them, and Craig stayed hiding in his room the whole time.  What could go wrong?)  But I enjoyed Ryder's band concert!

Ryder was so proud!  He's so cute!

There he is playing trombone

Here he's being recognized as one of two 7th graders chosen to play in the all-county band

This morning Craig and I cooked breakfast for the seminary students (mostly Craig did that-- I was his sous chef):

I was out late the night before for my choir's dress rehearsal, but Craig had everything all set up and ready to go!

Today was the last day of school before the break, and Colton and Camille had dress up days that somehow involved pajamas and stuffed animals?  

That's Camille's snake wrapped around her head.  Not a sombrero...

Colton is informing me that the theme was "festive, funky, fluffy Friday," so there you go!

This is out of order, but Camille got to meet Santa at the ward Christmas party

Also, Craig and the big kids helped out again at the Toy Lift, so that's pretty awesome.  I'm glad they get to do things that are more in the spirit of Christmas and not just parties!

Tomorrow my choir has its two Christmas concerts, which I'm excited for.  Last night at our dress rehearsal, I felt like my voice was finally BACK and functioning at its best.  It was lovely.  I'm just praying that I don't catch Craig's latest cold (or if I do, that it can manifest itself on Sunday, and not a moment before then!)...  Wish me luck!

Colton's Friend, Akston

We've had a really sad thing we've been dealing with here these last few months.  I didn't really want to write about it here, but it also feels very wrong to not mention it, so here we are.

A little over a year ago, a friend of Colton's, Akston, began having trouble seeing and hearing.  And running.  His parents took him to every specialist imaginable and eventually he was diagnosed with childhood cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy, a genetic, neurological condition that is degenerative and incurable once in advanced stages.  Because it's genetic, the whole family had to be tested and they discovered that Akston's two little brothers also have it, although it isn't active in them yet.  Akston's actual words-- and this will give you a hint of what a special kid he was-- were, "I'm so thankful I have this so we can help my brothers."  As if this weren't enough to be dealing with, during this same time Akston's mom, my friend Kristen, also gave birth to twins, her fifth and sixth children (wonderful, happy news, but also, ohmygosh that's a lot).  The twins, thankfully, do NOT have CALD, and they were able to bank their cord cells in the hopes that they will help them to fight it off in their brothers some day.  Meanwhile, the other two boys will need to have MRIs every 6 months to watch for if or when it becomes a problem, and if there are ever changes, they'll have to undergo treatment that is basically like chemotherapy.  It's going to be awful.  But at least it isn't hopeless.

In Akston's case, there wasn't much they could do by then but just wait for the disease to take its toll.  Over the course of several months he lost his ability to see and hear, to walk and talk.  Finally when he couldn't swallow any more his family could only keep him comfortable until the end.  He died on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  And it's just been so sad.

I'm sad for Akston, but probably even more sad for his mother and father.  I can't imagine dealing with so much heartbreak.  I also can't imagine caring for your vibrant, active child and watching him go downhill so quickly, all while trying to take care of newborn twins.  I'm also sad for Colton for losing his friend.  And I'm sad for Craig who, as bishop, had to preside over the funeral of a 9-year-old.  

Anyway, as is often the case, in the midst of all this tragedy there have been some glimpses of absolute beauty and I would be remiss if I didn't write these down, too.

There was a primary activity right before Easter where the kids were running a 3-legged race.  At this point Colton knew something was happening with his friend, but of course he didn't really know what to do about it.  I encouraged him to partner with Akston and they had a great time.  After the official activity was over, the kids began running around playing tag.  When Akston got tagged, he couldn't really see the kids to tag them back, so the kids all began running close to him, holding out their arms and yelling, "Here I am!  Tag me!  Tag me!"  It was a beautiful moment of children at their best, working to make sure their friend was included, despite his growing disabilities.  

Another time, the ward gathered to do some yard work for the family.  (Their neighbor kept complaining that they weren't maintaining their yard well enough.  WHO DOES THAT???)  Because I suck at yard work, I went inside to try and help.  While I was dinking around in the kitchen trying to be useful, Colton and Gideon came inside and sat with Akston on the couch.  Colton and Gideon were being goofy and joking around and Akston was laughing with them.  He couldn't talk very well by then, but he said something that went along with their jokes-- I didn't catch what he said, but it was very clear that Gideon and Colton understood everything he was saying and they all continued laughing together.  I was watching and trying not to cry, because I was pretty sure this would be the last time they were able to do this.  But it was so beautiful and innocent and sweet.  Just three friends laughing together, boys being silly.

Colton, Akston and Gideon at Akston's birthday party back in March.

I mentioned that on Ryder's birthday there was a YWs activity that I was supposed to arrive at the church early for.  This activity was an idea of one of the girls, who thought we should offer to babysit for parents so they could do a little Christmas shopping.  It was a lovely idea that was not particularly well executed on my part.  The day before it was supposed to happen, my secretary was frantically texting me, worried that no one would show up and maybe we should just cancel.  I was overwhelmed with everything else, and basically told her to shove it (I think my exact words were "I can't handle this right now").  I decided that we were moving forward with the activity and if it didn't work out, then maybe we should learn to plan better next time.  Sometimes that's all I can do.  (Reasons like this are why I don't love being the president!)

Within an hour of that dust up, I got a text from Kristen asking about the babysitting.  She was going to be at the church setting up a memorial room for Akston's funeral the next day, and wondered if the Young Women would be willing to watch her younger kids while she did that.

So we were able to help out in one final way.  (And the YW got to swoon over how cute those babies are).  It was one of those rare times where Heavenly Father takes your puny efforts and manages to make them count for something, and I felt lucky to be a part of it.

Such good friends!

The funeral the next day was so hard.  I honestly can't remember the last time I've cried so much.  I was leading the music, including a children's choir mostly made up of Akston's cousins all singing "I Will Walk with Jesus," which I had taught to the kids a couple years earlier when I was the primary chorister.  Kristen told me she had a video of me conducting it and Akston just singing his little heart out, so she wanted me to conduct it for him once more.

Megan thought to take a picture of Gideon and Colton with some of Akston's favorite things.  They had another wall with pictures of him, and blown up sized posters of stories and things he'd said.  It was really very lovely. 

Anyway, you can read Akston's obituary here.  He was such a vivacious and sweet boy (and I feel like those two traits rarely go hand in hand).  I really can't believe he can be gone so quickly.  I've been so impressed with Kristen and Nathaniel and how they've handled everything.  I hope some day when I'm faced with terrible trials I can be half as brave and faithful as they are.

Happy 13th Birthday, Ryder!

We'd barely finished getting the decorations up and then it was Ryder's birthday!  Trying to squeeze all his birthday celebrations in at the end of November/beginning of December is tricky, but we pulled it off!  His actual birthday was on Tuesday, and he opened this before heading to school:  

A Mistborn sweatshirt from the Richards!  He was thrilled!  (Also I just think he looks great here!)

And that evening we had his dinner of choice (fried ramen) and cake before dashing off for Young Womens (I'd stupidly managed to schedule our activity to begin earlier than normal, not making the connection that I'd want to be home for cake with my birthday boy!  Fortunately everyone else managed to pitch in and the activity went splendidly).

He wanted a vanilla cake with vanilla frosting.  Um, okay?  

Thursday we celebrated with grandparents!  Ryder asked that we eat at Tip Top Diner, which was fun (although very loud for some reason?) and after bouncing around a bit, ended up getting ice cream from Cold Stone (Krispy Kreme had closed early and nothing looked good at the Wegman's bakery), and then finally opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa.

(Our tree looks so lovely in the background!)

It's hard to actually see it, but he got an old-school metal slinky.  I think it lasted about two days before it was a hopelessly tangled mess...

And then on Friday he had his friends party!  He hemmed and hawed about it for a few days, but ultimately decided to invite his church friends rather than his school friends (I was glad he didn't try to mix the two groups-- that usually ends up being weird!) and they had a really good time!  I think it helps that his church friends don't have cell phones yet so they actually interact with each other and watch the movie.  (He'd been to a friend's birthday party the week before and everyone ignored the movie so they could watch TikTok!  I'm so worried for the attention span of the rising generation!)  Craig got to be home in charge of the party while I took the other kids to Soup Night at the Rawlins' home.  He said that everyone had a great time and they all seemed very happy when I got home, so that was good!

Here we can see Megan, Daniel, Peter, Cedric, Truman, Gideon and Camille all surrounding the birthday boy!  And they're eating red velvet s'more brownies, which was great because there wasn't too much left over for me to eat afterwards!  

I was glad we managed to do right by Ryder, even if it's a very busy time!  😅  And really, I can't believe that we now have three teenagers under one roof!  Heaven help us all!!!