Last night, Paul and I had the best evening cuddling up on the couch together and looking at the tree and talking about how happy we are to be sitting in our own homey home in our log cabin with our lights on. I can hardly believe I'm at this spot in my life where I've always wanted to be. We are looking forward to a lifetime of creating our own special traditions and I love hearing other people's traditions and gleaning from them. We came up with one of our own last night - sharing our favorite things with each other every year. You know, like that song "my favorite things." Whoever wrote those lyrics really did a good job of encapsulating it, I mean you don't get much better than cream colored ponies, raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes but wouldn't it be fun if our family did our own list of Favorite Things at the end of the year every year? Ahem, I hereby declare a new McAllister family tradition:
Our Favorite Things (and here are some things we shared last night)
- Big, wet, sloppy kisses from little Lizzie
- Me and Paul snuggling in bed together on a Saturday morning and letting the morning creep in on us instead of waking up and jumping out of bed
- Minimoons!
- When Lizzie says "Mas Pu" which means "I wanna watch some Winnie the Pooh" (just so you know, this is very limited because I'm trying to adhere as much as I can to the idea of no TV for her before she turns 2)
- Our home
- The view of Mt. Timpanogos from our home
- Receiving yummy Christmas treats from our neighbors (which we've been getting a lot of lately)
- Making yummy treats for our neighbors
- Getting Christmas cards from our loved ones
- Deer tracks in the snow
- Looking at the elk camped out near us
- The snow and the way Lizzie calls it "nose!"
Another tradition I'd like to begin when the kids are a little older is something a lady I recently met told me about. She wanted to make the story of Christ at Christmas come alive to the kids so she and her husband created a "Nazareth Dinner" on Christmas Eve. It consisted of finger foods that perhaps the people of Nazareth ate long ago like pita bread, cold cuts, cheeses etc. It was fun for her kids because it was different and they could use their fingers instead of utensils. Then the parents would read from Luke 2 and each kid had finger puppets to represent different parts of the nativity like the shepherds and baby Jesus and when they heard them mention the different characters, the kids would hold up the appropriate finger puppet. The lady who shared this told us that it became such a great tradition that now, even years later, with her boys all grown up, they will not let go of the tradition and insist on getting out their finger puppets and having their special Nazareth Dinner. I love it!
Santa, you ask? I dunno. My parents didn't do much with him and I think it's pretty silly how much some people get into it. I'm gonna keep him low key. Here are some more pics to share Christmas cheer.
Santa, you ask? I dunno. My parents didn't do much with him and I think it's pretty silly how much some people get into it. I'm gonna keep him low key. Here are some more pics to share Christmas cheer.
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| Lizzie kissing her little cousin Baby Ben |
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| President Monson's special table at the annual DMC Christmas party |
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| Me playing harp at the DMC Christmas party at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building |
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| What an honor it is to play at this party (third year now!) |
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| View of our lovely home with some lights |
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| Our harp and tree |
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| Lizzie in the snow (haha she's kinda scared of it!) |
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| She loves trying on this hat |
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| Making some Christmas treats - Paul helped me make this look pretty |
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| With Paul at the lovely Grand America Hotel, a pretty place to be this time of year |
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| Lizzie with her buddy Kendrick at Chuck E Cheese, she loved the "horsey" |
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| Our lovely home |
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| I really enjoyed decorating the mantlepiece |
