Capturing the Holidays

Before we hit the second major holiday of this new year, I wanted to catch up on the holiday season that closed the 2008 year. My 2008 Christmas holiday season was not like it ever has been in the past. Each year of my life I have been blessed to be home with family, even if it was a few days late because of my decision to spend Christmas week in the middle of the Arizona wilderness with a group of amazing kids; an experience I wouldn't ever trade. This year I was thousands of miles away from my family, which definitely brought on a whole new perspective and experience for me.

Knowing that I would not be able to be home with my family for the Christmas holiday I still had the desire to continue on many of the traditions that my family does together. One of which is making platefuls of an assortment of goodies and then dig-dong ditch them on friends and neighbors doorsteps.

This year I made several different goodies that left each plate spilling over with sweetness. My goodies consisted of gingerbread cookies, peanut blossoms, scotcheroos, rice krispie treats, mini black bottom cupcakes, and double chocolate cookies. There was definitely plenty to go around with an abundance of left overs! Sadly, I did not ding-dong ditch the plates on doorsteps this year, but was still able to give several of these goodies plates anonymously, while others were given in person. It was still enjoyable to make and deliver these goodie plates and to see the smiles that spread across the faces of recipiants.

A tradition coming from my dad's childhood is the bulding and decorating of a gingerbread house. All growing up my mom would bake the gingerbread house pieces as well as put the house together. Her talent and skills of doing this are incredible! We just had the fun of decorating it with tons of different candies that we also enjoyed nibbling on in the process.

Last year the house that my friend and I made ended up looking like a flat-roofed adobe. We had to use the aid of a large salt container to hold up the roof. It was kind of sad, but a still really fun experience. This year's inspiration came from my dream of one day having a log cabin in the mountains. I was actually able to see a variety of different style gingerbread houses, a few being log cabins, on display that the community members in the surround areas had made and contributed to the Idaho Falls museum. Seeing such a variety of gingerbread houses sparked ideas for my gingerbread house.

I made the pieces to my gingerbread house but it didn't get put together until Christmas Eve. With the help of a friend we were able to completely cover the house with logs, put on the lights, create the small wood shed, and build a snowman between Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. (Note: You cannot see the snowman in the pictures above because I ended up mumifying him; he rests in peace in the middle of the tree....As we were building him the plastic bags we were using to squeeze the frosting out of split [which was the start of a intense frosting fight]; to say the least he looked like a pretty pathetic snowman. I am sure he felt pretty humiliated too. We both happy with the solution).

The rest of the details were finally accomplished several days ago to make the gingerbread house complete. I am satisfied with it and admire the finished product on display. I don't know if I have one favorite part of the house because everything together adds to it overall. I like everything, but want to especially point out the stained glass windows (a trick from my mom), the construction of how the logs were placed, and the fish hanging from a string on the side of the house.

It is tradition as a family to gather around the gingerbread house in the minutes nearing the New Year and at the stroke of midnight to demolish the gingerbread house. That tradition wasn't followed through this year since my gingerbread house was still being built on New Year's Eve! I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with it....maybe begin the demolishing act by nibbling on things here and there.

I was able to spend half of Christmas day at work with the sweet residents that I work for. My co-worker and I were able to get ahead of schedule, which gave us the time to sit down and spend some quality one-on-one time with the residents that were present. I enjoyed watched them open gifts that they had received from distant family and friends. It was fun to relive a little of my childhood by sitting and watching some of the old-school claymation Christmas movies on TV that I had watched as a kid.

Shortly after arriving home my family had the great blessing of being able to have a conference call with my brother who is serving his mission for the LDS Church in Guadalajara, Mexico South. He had been in the field for only a couple of weeks. It was fun to hear his stories and experiences up to that point. He is doing amazing and exceeding all of our already high expectations of him as a missionary.

Next, my parents and older brother and his wife, who were home in Texas, were able to have a virtual Christmas over the internet using web cams. Unfortunately, Daniel was unable to join us for this virtual Christmas as he was with his son Ryan during that time. It is awesome to be living in such a day where technology allowed us to have Christmas 'together' even though we are thousands of miles apart, but it is definitely not the same as being with them. I am still grateful that I was able to spend Christmas this way with my family or it would have felt very lonely otherwise. It was different, yet memorable! I enjoyed everybody that I was able to spend Christmas with!