We had a great Christmas season, this year!  December was peppered with fun activities.  Some of the usuals and some new.  We checked out a different Christmas Tree lot this year to buy our tree and found it cute and quaint because of the Winter wonderland wagon ride.  My friend Rachael had the girls over for breakfast one morning so that we could get our visiting teaching done in one quick swoop, brillant!  Dinner club was fun as we treated ourselves to a chocolate making demo by a local chocolate shop.  One evening we decided to check out the lights at the LA Temple.  Then there were the usual Christmas dinners.  This year, Cory was in charge of our ward Christmas party and I think he did a great job on the decor.  Too bad Grant and I had to miss it cause he came down with the stomach flu an hour before it started!  Cory had all of the week after Christmas off so we did some fun family activities.  We took the kids to the California Science Center with Aunt Amber.  On another day, we used our passes to enjoy the afternoon at the zoo.  And finally, we took the kids to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked one day.  It was fun to be at home this year and focus on all the fun activities surrounding us.  This year, Cory and I celebrated 10 years of marriage so we treated ourselves to one of our favorite restaurants in Pasadena and then WICKED!  So fun to finally see it and so glad I could see it with Cory!  We both enjoyed it!

But above all... the thing that warms my heart the most during December is checking the mail to see who sent us a Christmas card.  I LOVE Christmas cards!  I know it takes a lot of effort to get them out (ours nearly didn't!), but I really appreciate each one that is sent to us!  And I kinda love that Christmas cards have evolved into photo cards.  I think it is fun to see a glimpse of that family's vacation from this year, or the beautiful photo shoot from that family, or just random pictures taken over the year, etc.  Each one is special and unique and definitely loved by me!  So, I might have forgotten to take my camera with us a time or two this year as we were enjoying all that December offered us... but I did snap this picture of my beloved Christmas card wall!

Please keep us on your list!

Winter Wonderland Wagon Ride

Santa Claus at the Ward Christmas Party

Looks like Santa came!

Maggie got a new camera for Christmas and so this is Christmas day... as photographed by Maggie: 

A very good friend of mine took these pictures of our family at the last minute so that I could have something to send on our Christmas card.  She always does a nice job and she gets extra blessings for doing this right before Christmas!  

goof ball!

One night during December, we met Cory at the studio he is working at right now and since it is so close to the LA Temple, we decided to go see the lights.  It isn't anything like the job that the Salt Lake Temple does on Temple Square, but it was still fun to walk the temple grounds.  

A cute place setting idea from my friend Denise, filled with after dinner mints. 

Thanksgiving this year was spent with aunt Jana and family.  She is my nearest relative.  When I think of Thanksgiving-past, I think of the years my family spent it together while we were living in Orange County.  From about the beginning of high school into my early years of college.  For many of those years, my aunt Jana and uncle Randy and family would join us since they were the only family we had nearby.  They would come for dinner and end up leaving 2 days later because they couldn't turn us down when we'd beg them to stay... and they lived less than 30 minutes away!  Those were the best Thanksgiving years.  Those are the years I think of when I think of my childhood Thanksgiving.  I learned how to make a Thanksgiving dinner in those years.  I learned how to defrost a turkey in a cold water bath, how to prep it and cook it.  And I learned the biggest secret you'll never see on the Food Network Channel... cooking your turkey in a Reynolds Oven Bag.  Tender, juicy, moist turkey in a mere 3 hours... it's the way to go!  Our feast always included yams with toasted marshmallows, Mrs Cubison's dressing, traditional green bean casserole, a bag of fresh Costco rolls (they tasted better back then), mom's raspberry-walnut-cream cheese jello salad and jellied cranberry sauce.  A big part of the preparation for us kids was making the relish tray: olives both green and black (which I never cared for), carrot sticks, celery sticks filled with cream cheese or cheese whiz, baby dill pickles and sweet jerkins.  AND, not to forget...Pies galore!  Apple, pumpkin, blueberry, pecan, chocolate cream, etc.  We always had a largest assortment, it was no secret to us that Thanksgiving was really about the selection of pies!  

Since then, Thanksgivings have never been quite the same.  Not bad, but never the same.  Over the years, I've tried to recreate that "perfect" feast from my childhood, but being a part of a new family has also introduced me to some new dishes that I've incorporated into my new traditional Thanksgiving meal.  I've brined my turkey a few times, but will always be grateful for the way mom taught be how to do it by rubbing the turkey with butter, salt, pepper and sage and then stuffing it full of apple and orange wedges with onion and celery on the outside... in an oven bag, of course. SIL Julianna introduced me to a sweet potato souffle, which has become one of my favorite dishes.  Mostly because it tastes like dessert and not a vegetable side dish.  And because Cory prefers the traditional potato, I've mastered homemade mashed potatoes that would make even my aunt Lori proud.  I'll always be grateful for the year that Grandma Joyce taught me how to make Grandpa's cranberry relish.  Of course, there are certain things on the menu which shouldn't be touched... mainly the green bean casserole, Mrs Cubison's dressing and mom's raspberry-walnut-cream cheese jello salad.  And this year, I nervously tried my hand at yeast rolls for the first time.  My sister Shelby encouraged me to try her recipe for pumpkin-crescent rolls.  We have a winner, people!  

So, I don't know... it's a toss-up!  I'll always think back to Thanksgiving-past with fondness.  But at the same time, my favorite holiday also seems to get better year after year because of the people I know.      

We did something on Friday that I rather enjoyed... Maggie and Grant went to the Auto Show with Cory and his dad and brothers, while Zoey and I kicked it by ourselves at home!    

It was a good time had by all!

Maggie wouldn't let us sneak through Fall without playing soccer.  Which is fine by me because now we are an experienced soccer family.  We knew better when the coach asked which parent would step up to  be the ref for our team this year.  We kept our mouths shut... and so did everyone else.  Our team was so close to being disbanned because NOBODY would step up to play the ref.  I even took on the challenge of seeing if I could talk Uncle Ricky into doing it, which I eventually did.  But then our team came up with what they thought was a brilliant idea... paying a high school soccer player to be our ref.  What can I say!?