Sing Sweet Silent Night

I would like to start this post by saying...MY SEMESTER IS FINALLY OVER!!! I feel like I can truly enjoy the Christmas season now (at least for a week.) The last few weeks have been a real struggle, but now Jon and I are done, the kids are out of school, and Jon will be starting this week with two days off - hooray! Time to get the Christmas shopping done, the rooms cleaned up, and get set to enjoy the holiday. In celebration, I would like to share with you a list of my favorite Christmas songs. I am not the kind of person who can just turn on the Christmas station and let it play - I can't take all the Celine Dion, Jessica Simpson, Michael Bolton, etc. So I started making my own Christmas mixes years ago, and over the years I have refined them. Each year I may take one or two off, or add one or two more, depending on how I am feeling. So this list is not in any specific order, it is not by favorite to least favorite or anything like that. These are just songs that I love this time of year, and without which it just doesn't seem like Christmas. Some are conventional, some are really not, which I think really is a good way to describe me :)

Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley

Christmas - Blues Traveler

Christmas Song - Dave Matthews (not the same as the next one)

The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole

Donde Esta Santa Clause - Guster

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan

The First Noel - Nat King Cole

The Gift - Aselin Debison

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Lou Rawls

Here Comes Santa Claus - Elvis (he shows up a few times - my Dad used to play him)

Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives

It's Christmastime - Barenaked Ladies

It's Christmastime Pretty Baby - Elvis

(It Must Have Been Ol') Santa Clause - Harry Connick Jr.

Sleigh Ride (Instrumental) - The Ventures

Jingle Bells (Instrumental) - it is an old 40's version

Last Christmas - Wham (which my children ALL know and sing)

Let It Snow - Dean Martin

Little St. Nick - The Beach Boys (although to be honest, I think Electric Mayhem does it best)

O Holy Night - Nat King Cole

Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy - David Bowie and Bing Crosby

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee

Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt

Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me - Elvis

Santa Clause is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen

Sleigh Ride (Instrumental) - Lee Anderson and his Pops Concert Orchestra

This Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - U2

Up On the Housetop - Jackson 5 (total guilty pleasure)

What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder

White Christmas - The Drifters

Winter Wonderland - Louis Armstrong

Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms

White Christmas - Bing Crosby

Baby It's Cold Outside - I am really picky about this one - there are a lot of versions that I don't like - my favorite is Petula Clark and and Rod McKuen, and second is Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer

Then there are full albums that I like the way they are:

John Denver and the Muppets- A Christmas Together

The Elf soundtrack (thank you Erin)

Lewis Ross - A Collection of Favourite Christmas Carols (all instrumental guitar)

Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Maybe there are some on the list that you haven't heard, or that you had forgotten about. They are just my standard Christmas fare - if you have favorites that aren't on here, let me know! I will check them out.

We Are Santa's Elves

This year we have had a very special visitor. I think that the letter that he brought us from Santa says it best:

Dear Anna, Hailey, Adam, and Jonathan,

I am trying to keep my “Naughty” and “Nice” lists up to date, but I find that during the month of December I am just too busy to keep an eye on all the children of the world myself. So I have enlisted the help of one of my elves in keeping an eye on the four of you. He will watch you all day long, and then report back to me each night while you are sleeping with what he has seen. In the morning when you wake up, he will be back in your house. He is not allowed to talk to you, but you can talk to him all you want. If you have anything you would like to tell me, just tell him and he will make sure that I know all about it. You can even send your Christmas letters to me by giving them to him. He is not allowed to play with you, either, because he is there to work! Please take good care of him while he is living with you – make sure he is warm and toasty and he will be happy. He will be in your home until Christmas Eve, when he has to come home to the North Pole to make sure I have all the correct information on you and also to help load the sleigh. I hope that you all will be good children so that he can tell me to put you on the “Nice” list and so I can bring you some great presents for Christmas!

Santa Clause

P.S. His elfen name is impossible for human children to pronounce, so you can name him whatever you would like. He is partial to the name Steven, but it is up to you.

Every once in a while, Steven and I have to have a little chat about how the kids haven't really been listening, or how they have been fighting with one another, and then the kids straighten right up and try to show him how good they can be. In the mornings when he returns from the North Pole, he is waiting for them in a different place. We LOVE Steven, and hope he will come to visit for Christmas for many years to come!

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

Or at least one of her front teeth. Hailey has had a loose front tooth for over a month, through Thanksgiving, and various people have been wiggling it all that time and trying to make it fall out, to no avail. There is a tooth coming in behind it, and so the tooth has been pushed further and further forward out of her mouth until she looked like Nanny McPhee. Finally about a week ago, Jon reached in and yanked the tooth out, much to Hailey's delight. It has been sold to the tooth fairy, and now the other front tooth is loose...

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

This year marked the first time EVER that our Christmas tree went up before it was even December. Some of Santa's elves brought us a beautiful fresh-cut tree on November 28, and the night of the 29th was the only night Jon was going to be home for over a week so we had to act fast. Anna helped me get the Christmas tubs out of storage while Jon was at work, and Sunday night we all decorated. Well, Jon and I put up the lights, and then the kids took over. With three kids working, (Jonathan was more interested in Lilo and Stitch) that tree was done within 20 minutes. It has been nice to have the tree up all this time, especially since it smells terrific. I love to sit in the living room at night with the rest of the lights off and just watch the twinkling.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I stated in a previous post that I wasn't going to post the pictures of our family from Thanksgiving because they would be the ones I would use for Christmas cards if I did them this year. Well...there will be no Christmas cards this year, because instead I spent that money on a new sweater, pair of pants, and skirt for myself. I figured that I could post the pictures here and if you guys wanted to see them you would. So just consider this your Christmas card from me this year ;)

I love you all, am thinking of you, and send you warm holiday wishes! From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!

A Turkey for Me, Turkey for You...

I am totally working my way to being caught up on blogging and getting to blogging about what has been going on at our house in preparation for Christmas, which is what I really want to blog about. Hoorah! So I am up to Thanksgiving now...the week before Thanksgiving we were treated to class parties in both Adam's and Hailey's classes, though unfortunately I left the camera in the car when we went to Hailey's, and since it had decided to spontaneously downpour at that exact point in time and I was wearing my red flats (super cute but NOT made for running through the rain to the car), there is no photographic evidence that we saw her in her cute pilgrim hat. Oh well.

Adam's class wore headbands with drumsticks on either side of their heads - funny. We ate turkey sandwiches with fruit and cheese puffs (just like the pilgrims) and then listened to them recite a poem and sing a song. It's always a good time to see all the parents trying not to fall off of the tiny kindergarten chairs while they hunch over their plates.

What is he doing?

Hailey's class had stew and cornbread, and they sang a song and performed a play about the first Thanksgiving (actually it was more of a recitation - there was no acting out the parts.) I was happy to see some of the kids with feathers on their headbands - small schools like ours are not concerned with political correctness to the point of insanity. It is something I remember from being in elementary school and having our class Thanksgiving parties (to which parents weren't invited, let alone did they come - parents were not nearly as involved then as they are now. Gotta say as a kid I kind of liked it that way - you were free from the critical eye of your parent when you were at school.) I was an Indian at least one year, and I remember doing war cries by clapping my hand over my mouth repeatedly - what child didn't think this was truly what Indians did? Ah, stereotypes...

For Thanksgiving, we went to my parent's house in Alta. It was a relatively low turnout this year, with just my family, my sister and her husband and two kids plus her daughter's boyfriend, my step-brother and his girlfriend, and my uncle and his roommate. (I realize that may not sound like a low turnout, but Christmas will be insane with all of those mentioned plus my step-mom's father, brother and his girlfriend, and daughter with her new husband and step-daughter.) The Thanksgiving tradition of my step-mom Paula is to take a family photo of whoever comes for Thanksgiving, and that is the picture she includes in her Christmas cards. Over the years she has gotten more and more creative in how she sets up for these pictures, utilizing the natural beauty of the area they live in. I also got some pictures of just my family, but I will not be sharing them at this time due to the fact that if I actually get Christmas cards out this year, those will be the pictures we use. It was a very nice Thanksgiving with all the typical foods, and this year I made my Grandma's cinnamon apples, which no one has made since she died 7 years ago. The recipe was somewhat bare-boned - it only said "red hots, apples, boil in water" - so I had to play with it, and will definitely do it a little different next year, but they turned out yummy anyway.

Failed Christmas picture...that's my husband for you...

My dad, Anna, and me

Bad Moon Rising

Actually, it was not a bad moon at all, but rather a New Moon...there really needs to be a rimshot after that comment. Anyways, after swearing that I would not be one of those crazy people who went to see New Moon at midnight the night it opened, I had to eat my words. And you know what? They tasted pretty good. A little background for you: I enjoy the Twilight series of books - I don't think that they are the best thing ever written, but the stories do capture me and give me that fluttery romantic feeling and I like them. I have spent some time being ashamed of that fact, but anyone who knows me well knows that I read a wide variety of books, some really challenging and thoughtful ones, and some that are just fluff. These books fill the cotton-candy need for me. That being said, I really didn't care for the first movie. I think I blogged about it as well if you want to check that out. So while I wanted to see New Moon, I wasn't getting my hopes up, and I figured I could wait a bit to see it. Well, my good friend Brandi came into town just to go and see the movie the night it opened with her in-laws, and they were kind enough to include me in the plan, so I bought my ticket on Fandango, wondering all the while if I would regret it. I DIDN'T. Not at all.

Brandi and me waiting

New Moon was so much better than Twilight was, and it turns out that seeing it in the middle of the night with other teens and women who love the story as much as you do makes it really fun. There was a lot of sighing and whooping and whatnot - especially the first time we all saw Jacob without his shirt...I'm pretty sure I gasped. (Brandi tells me this is ok since the actor is 19, even if the character he is playing is not.) There were still things about the movie that I wish they hadn't changed from the book, and a couple of things that I wish they had put in that they didn't, but overall it was really a good adaptation. (I tend to be more of a book purist - I would rather read something than watch it any day.) It was good enough that I went back and saw it Saturday morning (making it two times in little more than 24 hours.)

Vanessa, Brandi, and me

So thank you Brandi and the Hunts (sounds like a band) for letting me tag along - and thank you to Mama Hunt for standing in line for us in the cold cold cold!

Stephanie, Brandi, me, and Sahara after the movie - don't we look happy? Stephanie took her baby girl, and Sahara was two days away from her due date - those are some die hard girls!