Christmas Traditions

This month has been busy but I think we have are almost finished with all our traditional outings for the season. Tomorrow is my band Christmas Concert and that I believe ends all our commitments and activities for the year. After this one last event there is only normal life and a week of excitement as we  count down the days, minutes and seconds until it is finally Christmas day.

We attended the Christmas Creche exhibit which is always fun and took with us another family that is new in the area and had never gone so it was more fun to have friend there to share it with. We also ran into quite a number of our friends that also decided to visit the exhibit and attend the Children's Marionette show.

We went to a nursing home to sing with our ward's primary kids. (We visited another nursing home to sing yesterday also with our co-op too. )This is becoming a annual visit for our kids.

And of course we decorated cookies after, which is always fun. Licking off the frosting is always the best!

Especially if you pile the frosting on really thick!

We always make our way to the Baptist Church's Bethlehem. The kids usually love to see the sheep and camels and of course the whole nativity story acted out. However this year we must have picked the wrong night to attend or else this event is just getting too popular. The place was too crowded and the kids couldn't see anything going on. They did get to do a few of the things in the booths and stalls around Bethlehem and Sophie of course got to dance with the ladies that travel with the wise men. The rest was a bit disappointing because we just couldn't see or hear much of the story acted out. But Sophie made sure she saw her favorite part. We did get front row standing room to see the Angel come and sing to the shepherds.

Last night we traveled up to Oakland to see the Temple lights and watch a performance of the Nutcracker. It was a bit stormy and wet and you couldn't even see the temple through the fog.

It is hard to tell but there should be a brightly lit temple back behind those palm trees.
The ballet was a success and the kids loved it. Except for one major mishap, the evening went smoothly. Just before the intermission Molly was fussy so I was out in the lobby with her. I thought she was getting to the point where she was going to fall asleep but instead she threw up all over me and all down the front of her shirt. We ran to the bathroom where a nice lady could see I was in distress and helped me. She got word to my husband that I needed help and luckily it was intermission so he ran to the car and Molly and I got cleaned up the best we could and removed the layers of clothing we could do without and that were at their worst. The other kids wouldn't hear of not finishing the show and we had traveled over an hour to get to up Oakland for this, so I sent them back into the show and Molly and I were going to just wait in the car or something. Molly seemed much better after getting cleaned up. We still smelled a bit but we ended up going back in and seeing the last 20 min of the show. Molly loved it and clapped and clapped for each of the dances.
After the show the rain had stopped for a bit and the fog had cleared enough for us to see the lights on Temple Hill much better.

It was cold and wet but it was lovely to see the lights and especially the temple all lit up like that.

It has been a lovely season of celebration. We still have a week left to read more Christmas books and watch a few more Christmas movies. Rain is expected for a much of that time so we will have a nice cozy week with no night commitments or activities to pull us away. It should be a very nice quiet week.