Christmas

Well, that was probably the first memorable Christmas since we've had kids. Corey cashed in some of his vacation hours and gave himself a nice little Christmas bonus, and we were able to get the boys bikes, a T-ball set, and some stocking stuffer candy and matchbox cars. We also received a great family gift from the grandparents (my parents)--a play structure for the yard. Corey set it up today (Dec 26) and the boys enjoyed playing on it.

As fun as this was, I feel I missed a great opportunity to teach my children the true meaning of Christmas. We made up some fudge and took that to the neighbors--I even had the boys hand the jars of fudge to them. We talked about the nativity on Christmas Eve, but it seemed like the whole season was spent dwelling on Santa Claus and presents, rather than focusing on the Savior, which is what Christmas is really about. Next year, I intend to focus more on that, and perhaps do a family service project that involves the kids. Maybe we'll go Christmas caroling. We did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Mesa Temple Lights, and I was pleased about that. Although at that point, I hadn't taught the boys about Christ's birth and what that had to do with Christmas.

I realize they're still young and will have lots of opportunities to learn about Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas, but I didn't do as much as I would have liked to this year. I hope everyone had a merry Christmas--we had fun. The best part was having Daddy home for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We really enjoyed that!