Christmas

 Christmas Eve Eve (Saturday) started with a hearty breakfast sponsored by LeRoy and LeRoy Jr.

With each contributing their specific culinary skills, LeRoy made pancakes, Justin LeRoy made eggs, and the microwave made sausage.

After two decades of making Christmas Eve Jammies, I submitted to the lure of on-line shopping and ordered a full family set.

When the boys stood together we realized they all had matching socks on and they were practically already standing that way. We only had to have Nathan, Hyrum, and Bret fix their arms to match the others. Even Charlie wanted to fit it.

It will be interesting to see where Nathan and Hyrum fit into this line of height in the next few years. We suspect that Nathan will stand next to Derek and Hyrum will be right between Levi and Justin.

As soon as packages were opened, there was stripping...right there in the living room, in plain sight and hidden behind the chair. Even Charlie got new jammies.

The red and black plaid was the perfect holiday fit for our family!

Something in those jammies triggered stunts and loads of laughter.

It was an absolute joy watching my kids of all ages play together and cheer each other on.

* Seven months later I was asking Nathan and Hyrum what their favorite part of Christmas was and they both responded that having matching jammies and doing stunts was their very favorite memory. Neither one of them could remember even one gift they had received.

All the excitement and silliness woke Kailee Jo up so we took the chance to get a family picture instead of waiting for bedhead and sleepy faces Christmas morning.

Once Erika got Kailee back to bed we probably all should have gone to bed, but we were still wide awake so we stayed up even later (1:00am) playing games.

We had a holiday pool tournament that got a little crazy when Justin stated his legs were too hot and Hyrum followed him right into a poor fashion choice.

Taboo was set up for those waiting their turn in the pool tournament.

We gradually dragged ourselves out of bed Christmas morning and the gift-giving began. There were large and small gifts, meaningful and silly gifts, and most of all, gratitude and love shared throughout the whole day. Kailee was most in love with a rocking unicorn that Daymia gave to her.

After the mess was cleaned up, Daymia made her signature cherry turnovers...with a twist, literally. She shaped them into two candy canes. Somehow they did taste more festive that way.


* A week before Christmas we were at church and after the power flickered a couple of times during sacrament meeting, it finally went out for good during Sunday school. Since we live out in the country, that isn't a matter of just being without light and we can just open windows for the remainder of the meeting, that means we are also without water and sewer because the church is on its own well and septic tanks. So, after LeRoy made a phone call to the power company (nice to have a direct connection!), the remainder of church was cancelled and we all went home. I admit that two, instead of three, hour church was really nice!!