Gearing up for Christmas

Probably the busiest time before Christmas is the first week in December. Everyone schedules their concerts and parties early so as not to interfere with other holiday activities. First we had Spencer and Tyler's band concert. They did a great job, and it was nice and short. 

That's Spencer in the front row, playing my oboe. He started playing it this past summer, and he loves it. He especially likes that he's the only one in the band. I used to feel the exact same way, and I love to hear him play!

That week we also had Dave's work party and the church party. I guess these two look a little big to sit on Santa's lap, but they were willing to do it for the candy canes.

Brennan told Santa he wanted a robot for Christmas. He also wrote two letters telling Santa he wanted a robot  - one at home and one at school.  Levi had absolutely no interest in sitting on Santa's lap. He wouldn't even get close enough to get a candy cane. Then he had to go in the other room when Santa visited his preschool class. 

The following weekend was one of my favorite Christmas activities: holiday baking! I made sugar cookies, magic cookie bars, 3-C bread, molasses cookies and fudge. We gave most of it away when we went caroling a couple days later, so we had to make more. 

I make half the sugar cookies crunchy with sprinkles (Dave's favorite) and the other half soft with icing (everyone else in the world's favorite). Aren't I nice? 

My boys LOVE to help me make fudge. It's an old family recipe, and it makes a lot! We mix half with walnuts in a 9x13 pan and half with marshmallows in another 9x13 pan. I just found a tiny bit leftover while cleaning out the fridge yesterday. What a sweet surprise!

We had so much fun caroling. Tyler and Spencer played a duet (violin and oboe), and then Spencer accompanied our singing. It sounded so much better than usual.

I also made truffles. I told myself I didn't have time for it this year. But I just really wanted to, so I did it anyway. I made 200 and passed them out to teaches, friends and family. Plus of course we had to leave plenty for us :) Tyler's math teacher is still telling him how much she enjoyed them!

I made raspberry, peppermint and almond.

Then I wanted to hand out something to all the relief society sisters at church, so I made these baking soda/corn starch ornaments. I found them on Pinterest - there's lots of different recipes, but they're all basically the same. I thought they were simple, easy and cute. I found it worked best when I completely cooled the dough before rolling it out. Then I added little designs with a wire wisk and sprinkled glitter on top. They baked for a long time at a low temp. Then I put them in these little bags and stapled pretty paper on top, which I thought made a nice presentation. 

Dave also likes to hand out a little something to everyone at his work, so we made these cinnamon/applesauce ornaments. I made some at the relief society craft day, and they were super easy to roll out. But when we tried to make more at home they were extremely crumbly and difficult. I don't know what we did wrong, but at least they turned out okay. I think next time I'll make the eyes and mouth white too, because you can't see the black when they're hanging on the tree.  

At least Spencer's piano recital was later in the month. It was about a week before Christmas. He chose a very fun, exciting song, and he played it perfectly. Those recitals are always really enjoyable. Plus they're nice and short and serve cookies afterwards.

One of my favorite things about Christmas is surprising people. I had the idea of getting my parents a new dishwasher for Christmas and having all us kids go in on it together. Theirs broke a few months ago, and they hadn't been able to get a new one. I was happy to find a great one at Lowe's for a good price (in fact the price went up just as I was ready to buy it, but they let me have it for the previous price.) Then a friend from church installed it while my mom was out of the house. She was so surprised when she got home!! There are definitely some benefits to having a big family.

Look how cute Chloe was the Sunday before Christmas! I just had to take pictures.

The Boy Scouts rang the bell for the Salvation Army for 8 hours - 4 hours the Saturday before Christmas outside Target and 4 hours Christmas Eve in front of Wal-Mart. Spencer really wasn't looking forward to it, but he actually enjoyed it and wants to do it again next year. Donations were slim the first hour, so he called and asked me to drop off his saxophone. His scout master said that 10X more people donated after that!

Tyler thought that sounded like a lot of fun, so he joined them the last half hour and played his violin. 

Brennan went along too. Maybe we'll sign up as a family next year. One shopper told us we had the best set-up they'd seen all season.