Belated Christmas Post

Christmas was a blur.

We spent Christmas delivering meals on Christmas Eve, Vegas inspired Christmas pageant (at least my costume), candlelit dinner, matching my sister, playing Spot It, breakfast pull-a-parts and fresh squeezed orange juice, Temple Square, Les Mis and getting sick on Christmas (we demand a re-do!).

And we finally did get that white Christmas.

Christmas-ing

As I write this I sit under the glow of our Christmas tree.
Still a novelty considering that we put up our tree last night, only 10 days to spare until the big day.

Life has been hectic which is generally the theme for this time of year.
But amid the chaos, we have packed in some holiday cheer.

 "SANTA!!!!!! I know him! I know him!"

We kicked off the festivities in mid-November with the Riverwoods Lighting, spied Santa and listened to a 10-minute version of "Corn Dogs" by Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband that was about 9 minutes too long.

Post Thanksgiving, I spent an afternoon volunteering at the Giving Tree at the mall.

We saw "A Christmas Carol" at the Pioneer Theater after eating delicious Greek food at Aristos.
Oh, gyro. So delicious.
Thursday night is also Greek music night and we had a personal serenade the length of our entire dinner.

The following night we dove deeper in the the Christmas psychosis with the Mindy Gledhill Christmas concert (delightful, by the way). I fell in love with the opening band, Mideau. Check out their Kickstarter campaign here.

And then we finally nabbed some snow.
It has melted since but the forecast is looking pretty white.

Come on, snow! I really, really, really want a white Christmas this year. Pretty please?

Christmas is in the details

I feel a bit ripped off from this Christmas season.
It came in so quickly and left even more swiftly.
I barely had a chance to register that it was the holidays.
And for that I feel bummed.
The lack of holiday-ness is more my fault.
I didn't slow down and really take advantage of the beautiful season.

I blame the lack of snow. (I'm talking to you, Utah weather! Snow already!)

However, the Christmas spirit was still found in the details.

Right before Christmas we bought a 5 pound bag of clementines....
which resulted in a very, very happy Jacob.

Then his parents gave us another 3 pounds.
We have been eating clementines with every meal.

My favorite Christmas decor is the smokers at my parent's house.
Smokers are like nutcrackers, but you put a little incense in them and they smoke. (notice the smoke above his hat)
I think they are German (?) and my family has been collecting them for years.
The one above is my favorite.
I picked him out when my G-ma and I were in Germany in 2005.
I hope to inherit it one day. (hint, hint Padre.)
We were given a nutcracker to start our own Benson collection.

In the midst of holiday mayhem, I got my Martha Stewart on by making a pine cone elf.
Pinterest for the win!
(I found my pinecone at the church parking lot. And I took it. Am I going to hell?)

One of my favorite holiday tradition is our advent calendars from my grammy (the German one, melissa).
One chocolate a day is the best way to count down Christmas.
(Does it seem like all of my Christmas traditions are German? I feel like Christmas is just German.)

Glitter took over our house.
I experimented with some glitter, clothespins and mod podge to create some magnets for some gifts.

Swoon.
Glitter is an instant mood booster.


Now I want to glitter everything.....

From Autumn into Winter

The insanity that has been December has prevented me from documenting our last few months.
Here is a little snippet of the latest haps...

I convinced my sisters to skip out on school (such a good example) to go to the store opening of H & M, the first one of its kind in Utah.

Someone asked if we were twins.
For the record, I got dressed first.

The line behind us.
We almost were in the first 500 but our dreams were thwarted.
The people in line with us were great and even bought us hot chocolate.
Sadly for them, they thought the store opened two hours before it actually did.
They were in for a loooooooooong wait.

An H&M opening is usually a pretty big deal. Fire code with hit early on, so the line continued to grow as shoppers filtered out. There was a line to get in all weekend.

We made up for the wait by shopping our little hearts out.
This is just my bag for trying things on.
My wallet's only relief is that the store is not close by.

Our annual Young Women in Excellence featured a cooking theme, hence the aprons.

I am currently working on my Personal Progress award (I was a delinquent youth and never earned mine).
For my first project I stitched two dresses, one of them entirely on my own! (If you don't look too close, you won't find any mistakes.)


And on to the hour we had a kitten....

We found this adorable little kitten outside of our church one night.
She would meow and peek her little head against the glass door.
Jacob said if she was still out there when we came out we could think about taking her home.
And would you believe it? He let me take her home!
At least until we found her a home.

We had her for a whole hour before we found a neighbor who would take her. 
But in the short hour we had her our lives were halted.
We ridiculously followed her as she explored the house.
And in that short hour she already knew the personalities of the house. She would snuggle with me and play with Jacob.
Nothing got done. Is this how parents feel?

Note: I'm glad she was able to find a good home. Within the first 2 minutes she had eaten a Cheerio off our floor. I don't think we are ready to be cat parents.

 The real kick off for Christmas was visiting Temple Square for the lights with Young Men/Women.

My car full of girls was hilarious.
I kind of wish we could ride together every time.

Jacob and I drove up to the Pioneer Theater for "Annie," our annual holiday show.
Thanks JoEllen for picking us up the tickets! (We are accepting applications for U of U students who will pick up tickets for us when JoEllen graduates. Any takers?)
The show was as wonderful as always, and continues to be one of my favorite ways to get in the holiday spirit. Previous holiday shows at the Pioneer Theater have included "White Christmas" and "A Christmas Story."

We spent a few Monday nights at Thanksgiving Point for ice sculpting.

 Each week the sculptor hauls out a 300-pound chunk of ice and starts pounding away to the delight of the crowd.

Two weeks worth of sculptures.
I'm kind of dying over the intricacies of the sculptures.
What a really cool talent.
"Hello, I'm a professional ice sculptor."
Now that's a conversation starter.

And the Christmas spirit was kicked up a notch with reindeer.
That just laid there amid the shrieks of children begging them to fly.
(Really. The kids loved them.)

Once inside the Thanksgiving Point store Jacob found an elf hat.

Thanks to Loralee and DJ for coming with us!

We finally attended our ward Christmas party. The Young Women were in charge of the decorations.
(See the little paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling?)
The food was good and the entertainment hilarious, provided by the Primary children.

We've started a new family Christmas tradition.
When given an ornament that doesn't fit on our tree theme (red and gold) or is unsavory, we secretly stick it on the trees of our friends and families.
Without them knowing. A reverse stealing, if you will.

Beware if you invite us over during the holiday season.

No tree is safe.


* The photo above is of an ornament we left on my sister-in-law's designer tree. Read: fancy tree with all alike ornaments. We stuck this right in the middle before we left, sticking out like a sore thumb. And somehow no one has accused us yet. And no, I don't think she reads this blog.