Christmas 2023
We got to have two Christmases this year! (kinda). Home Christmas and Utah Christmas. Home Christmas is where all the presents were. We contemplated flying to Utah (ended up driving so Dash could come) and the kids had some large, heavy presents, so we combined Dinner under the Christmas Tree with presents a few days before we left for Utah.
The first day after we arrived in Utah we went skiing with the Birds at Solitude. It snowed most of the day, which was fun! Snow wasn’t great, but it’s never a bad day when skis and chili cheese fries are involved.
Christmas Eve was on Sunday, so we hit up church before heading up to Brighton to ski with the Banks Bunch. My mom played a beautiful organ/piano duet to Joy to the World for the opening song. It was really stunning!
Our Christmas Eve feast was delicious, as usual. Then we got to introduce Alan to the Scrooge song, and watch a video Rusty made with all our Hawaii pictures.
Jenni and Hayley started a nonprofit after Jeri died called, “Smile at the People.” Proceeds from the merchandise sales go to help individuals in a lot of different, personal ways. My mom bought all the grandkids a t-shirt and they loved them!
Christmas morning was at Alan’s house, so the Elves had some new, unique places to hide clues for the Stockings. It was probably one of the best hunts yet! After hearing their Santa letters, Alan said that our Santa was a lot nicer than the one he grew up with as a kid. I thought Blake’s ornament this year was HILARIOUS….but it didn’t quite get the reaction I expected. Halle’s ornament is a picture of Basil the Lizard, and Alan was at first, so confused. He thought the lizard had died and that we’d used the scales to make the ornament. We could Not. Stop. Laughing.
Brunch was at the Cornells. We took a nice long Christmas walk with Dash and then tried to play pickleball. It was so cold that Blake shattered two balls in a row when he hit them. We abandoned that pretty quickly. Christmas dinner wasn’t our finest hour, with lots of family drama that left us all a bit shaken. So, we all piled in the car to go for a drive and we found a some Epic Christmas lights in Highland. Wish I had a picture.
Other fun included Luminaria, drinks at Swig, yoga and acai with Nat. Kids were ready to get back to friends and the roads were clear and dry, so we took off a day early, stopping at Sharon’s grave to give our kids their angel wing ornaments I had made for all the grandkids (We were going to do this on Christmas, but didn’t because: fighting.)
