'Tis The Season

This year we've been so blessed to have so many friends and family to celebrate with. Here's what we've been up to:

Dec. 4 - Ward Christmas Party
Great way to kick off the Christmas Season. Our Bishop has it catered and our (previously known as) activity committee does a great job with decorations and games. We love getting together with our ward. And there's always a special visitor for the kids.

Dec. 8 - Relief Society Christmas Dinner
Our Relief Society does a great job providing good food and a fun time. Our Bishop's wife is in a singing group that came and performed for us after dinner. It was great! And I even got to bring my mom with me, which I always like.

Dec. 12 - Community Sing-a-long
This year our Stake sponsored a night of singing Christmas carols. We had a pretty good turnout and Brian and I even participated in the musical number our ward contributed. It really helped put me in the Christmas spirit singing all those songs I love.

Dec. 14 - Brighton Christmas Concert
Like I said on Facebook, we might be going to this until we're 40 because of all the siblings we have. (OK, so only until we're 31 or so, but still that's a long time.) It was fun though to go up and sing. Two of my younger siblings happened to be there too (to see old friends) and Brian's brother is in the choir, so we all stood together again. I am really starting to forget the songs though so hopefully we get pushed more to the back.

Dec. 16 - Glad Christmas Party
Always a fun time. We had yummy soup and rolls and then sat around listening to Grandpa Glad's Christmas stories (which incidentally have nothing to do with Christmas, but it's tradition.)

Dec. 17 - Brian's Work Party
We all went bowling. I have gotten worse at this and I always break the nail on my thumb. No Fun. But we did do one game all left handed, so that was pretty entertaining.

Dec. 18 - Grandma Glad's Birthday Dinner
We went to a place called Golden Dragon. It was really yummy Chinese food. Brian's dad ordered most of the food, and it was so good. I ate way too much. I even tried dim sum for the first time.

Dec. 19 - Bishop's Christmas Open House
We really love our Bishop. He is always so good to have us all come and invade his house. They had yummy food and we had a good time just talking and singing Christmas carols and even playing a few minutes of Christmas Charades. This party is always so much fun and a bunch of us always end up staying to the very end because we don't want to go home to our tiny apartments after having spent a few hours in his huge house. We're going to miss this ward a lot.

Dec. 20 - Walker Christmas Party
Gotta love family. This year we switched things up and had an awesome Italian dinner, complete with Olive Garden salad (the only salad I will eat, probably because of the dressing.) And of course, the traditional brownie pudding for dessert. We had our program and sang some more Christmas carols. Then our grandparents passed out the gifts. They gave the married couples this year a nicely framed picture of the temple we were married in and a sign that says "Families are Forever". I love it!

Dec. 21 - Fesitvus
Our friends Landon & Marci invited us over for a Festivus party, a first for us. (It's from Seinfield.) We had our Airing of Grievances over dinner, most of which consisted of small apartments, and our husbands golfing too much, then we had the Feats of Strength, in which we played Ticket to Ride & Blurt. We had so much fun with everyone and laughed a lot!

Dec. 24 - Barlow Christmas Eve
We had our traditional Pork Roast and Potato Casserole, with Brownie Pudding for dessert. We had a program and sang more Christmas carols. And we ended the night with Silent Night on the harmonica and guitar. Even though we do the same things every year, it always makes me happy because it's a great time to get together and feel that Christmas Spirit.