I Celebrate the Day (part 1)

Russ went to bed an hour ago—worn out by the fact that Christmas Eve (and it’s load of present-wrapping) fell on a Saturday night (with it’s obligatory Christmas-dress-finishing). I talked to one of my sisters for a while and then thought I would write some uber-profound post about Christmas, but I find my brain is too tired for profound. So instead I will write about some of the highlights our our celebration.

I finished the pajamas. I don’t have pictures of all of the kids in them, but Jenna did pose for me so that I could show you how well they turned out.

The top pictures shows Jenna with her new pjs and her new stylish glasses as well. You can see that I made the pj tops with the original cat flannel, but trimmed the tops with the pants fabric and a little bit of a black & white paw print fabric. Then I made the pants out of the new bright pink fabric, and put a band of the cat fabric on the bottom with a little piece of the paw print fabric. I’m so pleased with how they turned out, and both girls wore them all day today (except for to church) so I think they love them too.

We did manage to get the tree decorated and it is totally beautiful this year. I experimented last night, trying to take pictures that would show the lights without washing everything out. I pinned something on Pinterest that was supposed to tell me how but I was too lazy and just kept lengthening the time of the shot. I thought I ended up with a nice glow to my picture.

The only problem with taking the pictures with such slow time was that when the kids all jumped on the couch in the middle of a picture I ended up with a really interesting blur in the middle!

Last night we didn’t stick with our tried & true Christmas Eve celebration. Some of the kids had expressed their unhappiness that some of the parts were “childish”, so I tried to respect their opinions and adapt our traditions for older kids. Instead of reading the story of the nativity from the storybook that we have used since Cindy Lynn was in preschool, we read it from the scriptures. But we still sang all of the hymns as we went along.

I also asked the kids if any of them have ever felt like they’ve missed out because we don’t act out the nativity every year. One of them said that yes, she thought she wanted to do it. One child was adamant that we should not do it. He was, however, the most enthusiastic participant once we started our programme. (Yes, I spelled it that way on purpose. It made me feel very Jane Austen. And I am clearly very tired…) I am wondering if this is the first time that the three wise men brought the baby Jesus technology. (A tv remote, an xbox controller, and a shoe.)

After we were done with our nativity and all of the accompanying carols we read about the first Nephite Christmas in Helaman and 3rd Nephi. Definitely my favorite, every single year. Then we read the short story of the Other Wise Man. (Our bishop read a similar tale at our ward Christmas party this year, and said it was by Tolstoy. It makes me curious to know how many renditions of the ‘inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me’ stories there are out there.)

Then we sent the kids off to bed and Russ & I got to work. Do you think that someday I could finish both the present wrapping and the dress making all in November???

PS—My post title is the title of a song by a group called Relient K. You should listen to their Silent Night/Away in a Manger first and then immediately listen to I Celebrate the Day. (On the cd they just flow from one to the other and you can’t even tell that they are 2 separate tracks.) Every year this is one of the Christmas songs that moves me the most and reminds me why I am so grateful for the Savior’s birth.