Barson Family Christmas Party, More Christmas Concerts and Gingerbread Houses

We had a great time at my mom's "Christmas Eve" party. We also loved seeing Josh and Megan's Christmas Sing at school and Josh's first guitar recital. He was so cute! And lately, the kids put together a gingerbread house from our fabulous home teacher Mark Ah Mu.

Christmas Concerts and Cookies

The month of December brings Christmas concerts. Even though the month is always really busy, I love the concerts. Lia had her Mt. Ridge concert, Laura had her piano recital, we had our ward Christmas party where Nate was chosen to be the M.C. and decided to do it Lawrence Welk style, and Lia had her violin recital with her private teacher. And lastly, we decided to rekindle another Barson family Christmas tradition from my childhood by making cookie dough rolls for our neighbors. 

More in December

Our Elf on the Shelf Buddy came back in December, Nate and I went to his work Christmas party, Lia held a "Pancakes and Personal Progress" activity at our house that was all her planning and carrying out and was extremely successful (we were so proud of her!), we got our first ski day in, the girls and I went to a Jenny Oaks Baker concert, Josh went on a long awaited ride in a Ford Raptor with a guy in our ward, and we had more shenanigans from Buddy. 

Luminaria

At the beginning of December we took Janet and Kent with us to see the Luminaria display at Thanksgiving Point. I had been wanting to go for the last couple years and we finally made it happen. We had dinner at Smash Burger (Megan's favorite place) and then went and saw the lights. I don't like to use this phrase very often (because I think it's kind of lame), but it was magical! I was like a little kid. I loved everything about it, especially the picture of the kids we got in the gazebo. My favorite part was the end when you walk through the statues of Christ (Megan was also fascinated by them and had to touch them). It was a really fun night and a great way to start the season.

December

At the end of November/beginning of December, my friend Vivian got married. She's one of my friends from high school and is such a great person. I am so happy for her! We also put the "Light the World" tree up again, Lia took some cute selfies, Josh and his friends built all kinds of things in the basement, I got pictures of Megan and Laura doing their Christmas service projects (Nate gave all the kids some money and told them to make someone's life better with it by Christmas--it was their choice what they did with it), I tried renewing one of my family's Christmas traditions from when I was growing up by making manger candy, we picked out our Christmas tree and decorated it, my dad and Dana delivered their Christmas present to us early, I had minor surgery on my toes, and I decided to finally get rid of the beta fish fund jar and accompanying beta fish supplies and the snow globe Lia made for Josh years ago.