EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS....

The past week has been crazy, what with finishing [I mean starting....] Christmas shopping, having a few of the grandkids over to spend time with Grandma doing some baking and decorating, attending Christmas cantatas, and FAMILY gatherings (which are the BEST!). To begin this busy month, Kloyie and Skyla came over and decorated my Christmas tree - can I tell you what a treat it is to have someone else do that? If they don't do it, it probably wouldn't get done! Because I'm working this year, I wasn't able to get to any of the grandkids school programs; but then again, I wasn't told of any either! Maybe they just weren't involved in any...maybe the schools are being prejudiced by political agendas that would like to see all mention of CHRISTmas out of the school protocol. Taylor and Laila spent the night and I took them to see the Christmas lights at Layton City Park; then we decorated Christmas cookies for them to take home to their Mom. When my kids were little this was a huge endeavor for us to do at Christmas and Valentines Day - cutting out cookies, baking and decorating for the neighbors. The 3rd weekend, I had Weston come over to build and decorate a Christmas train engine. I mentioned that maybe we should get Uncle Curt involved on the engineering end of it - the results were AWESOME! As we were finishing up the engine, Matt, Alysa and Sloane showed up and it quickly went from the 'little engine that could' to the whole train, and a village. A large piece of cardboard was found and covered with foil - and then Mike and Connor showed up.....their contributions were of a more "natural" essence with trees, a bonfire, deer, and lotsa poop! Droppings by the outhouse and around the lone pine tree. I was thrilled to see that my adult man children were having as much (or MORE) fun than the little kids doing this. In fact, we've decided that next year it will be a family project - where we will put the finished masterpiece is unknown. I know Weston took this one home and it's sitting downstairs in Heather's family room on their ping-pong table. Merry Christmas, Santa - looks like you'll have hot chocolate and your choice of cookies, candy, and deer droppings! We all were invited into the Campbell home for their annual Christmas Family gathering. Such a spread of delicious food, warm feelings of love, interrupted only once by the crashing of a broken village piece upon the tile floor, and the Christmas program, carefully orchestrated by our 'in-house' producer, director, and most times STAR, Teri. This is a tradition that DiAnne started when her children were small; then when my kids and both of our grandkids started coming up thru the ranks, all were utilized in some way into the Nativity story. Interesting that little Seth was the Baby Jesus last year, and this year he is a toddler. How time flies! And Sloane's famous response to Santa ~ I WANT A DIAMOND! I train them young, don't I? Perfect advertising for Morgan Jewelers!

It is now a very quiet Sunday - outside is a blanket of new fallen snow! Guess I commented too soon about getting used to having a balmy Christmas with snow in the mountains and grass in the valley!