Abundant Life: Christmas Eve

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Christmas Eve

This is one of the only times that we have done Christmas Eve entirely by ourselves.

After dinner (we decided on fried rice to use up leftovers from the Chinese Sundaes the night before -- not very festive, I know, but the girls LOVED it) we read the Christmas story from the Bible and used the magnetic nativity from Nana a couple of years ago to illustrate. Then we sang songs for a long time -- I lost my voice yesterday so I wasn't much help and since Ella & Kate can't read well enough, it was mostly a Sarah Allen duet which was nice (though I did give me some sympathy for those who aren't big singers who have to endure the Smithfam marathon singfest when we get together). The we opened Jammies and recorded some songs for the grandparents (see below). We wanted to get all the extra energy out, so we turned on our Ella Fitzgerald Christmas CD (our new favorite of all time) and let the kids (and Allen) dance around for a while before getting everything ready for Santa and heading upstairs for bedtime.

1 comment:

Stacey PDecember 31, 2007 at 5:14:00 AM MST
L,
That was a brilliant idea. I particularly love the matching PJs - I am sure the girls are delighted! I hope you are hanging in there...
Hugs,
S
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words to live by

Make up your mind to be happy-even when you don’t have money, even when you don’t have a clear complexion, even when you don’t have the Nobel Prize. Some of the happiest people I know have none of these things the world insists are necessary for satisfaction and joy. Why are they happy? I suppose it is because they don’t listen very well. Or they listen too well-to the things their hearts tell them. They glory in the beauty of the earth. They glory in the rivers and the canyons and the call of the meadowlark. They glory in the love of their families, the stumbling steps of a toddler, the wise and tender smile of the elderly. They glory in honest labor. They glory in the scriptures. They glory in the presence of the Holy Ghost. One thing I know for certain: the time we have here goes by far too quickly. Don’t waste any more time sitting on the bench watching life pass you by. -- Joseph B. Wirthlin

words to live by

When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. --Wendell Berry