The Days Before Christmas Part 2

 It's fun to have friends our age that live so close, so when we're having a crazy day we can call them to come be crazy with us! Haha, Fern brought her two over to decorate some gingerbread men with us, and succes, we actually did what we planned to do! Kalea took decorating her gingerbread man very seriously, while Brynlee was more serious about eating all the m&ms she could find. It was a fun morning with our friends and gave me a bit of a break from chasing my 2 crazies around the house.

 

After a fun playdate for the kids, I got to go have a fun playdate with my family. This year we continued with the enormous task of making hundreds of chocolates to give away and to enjoy ourselves. It's a lot of work, but it's one of those traditions that we'd really miss if we didn't do it. This year we added the chocolate covered raspberries that we enjoyed so much at the reunion in Bear Lake and they were well worth it. Also, this was my first year dipping the fondant. In years past I have been the roller, but I guess this year I must've grown up enough to do the more "adult" job and as you can see above, they look awesome- I'm not partial to my own talents at all...Ha! We also got way more done having two people dipping this year, so I'm sure we'll be making way more in the upcoming years.

While on the topic, a huge shout-out to my Mom for all the work she puts into carrying on all of these traditions for us. And a big thank you to my Grandma for starting a lot of these traditions way back when her kids were growing up. It's so much easier to see the meaning behind all these things now, as an adult, than it was when I was a kid, I appreciate it in such a different way. It takes a lot of love to carry these things on and what I realize now is that maybe I just thought my Grandma was awesome because she made such good food and her house looked nice, but now I understand how Christmas was her time to bring her whole family together, share her love through her cooking and share her testimony of the Savior through all the little details that are still etched in my mind. As the years go on, I'm hoping that I can pass on these pieces of her to my own children, so they know where they came from and feel a connection to her. I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of work!