Christmas 2020

This Christmas was delightful! We all have fallen into a good groove now that we're so deep into this whole COVID thing. I'm finding myself being rather content with just staying at home most of the time and having fewer places we are running off to all the time. While I miss social interactions, I'm also much more content to connect virtually with a variety of people and physically with our "COVID bubble" or "COVID pod". Most of the time the pod just contains my parents. Since case numbers spiked as the weather got cooler we've kept that bubble closed except for a few outdoor/masked/distanced interactions. For Christmas we opened up the bubble a bit more and were able to see my parents and my in laws in our home basically all day and unmasked, and Andrea's family briefly, indoors, and masked. It's crazy to think that these are the kinds of qualifications we all need to make these days "have a safe holiday". Even the new Pixar movie "Soul" had a caveat at the end of the credits mentioning how the film was created "distanced" and in the individual artists homes in California. Such strange times. Scott and I had to and chose to forgoe many family traditions this year. One of them is "Christmas tree hunting" in the days just after Thanksgiving. One of the best parts about hunting for a Christmas tree is getting to go sledding with cousins and hang out as a family before and after. Since there was a mandate to not spend any time gathering with anyone outside your household for the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving we felt that it wouldn't be wise to gather immedately after either. So, we masked up and went to a tree lot nearby. We spent $75 on a tree (typically we spend about $50 on gas and the permit when we tree hunt) and I'll admit, we had the best looking tree we've ever had this year. It was so fragrant and full. Thankfully, the needles seemed "pokey" enought that Maxwell didn't seem too interested in touching it. haha. It lost its needles REALLY easily but it managed to look good until Christmas Day. Everyone's presents came with a sprinkling of pine needles...no joke. But it worked out in the end. Another tradition we often enjoy is caroling and the sing along Messiah. This year Scott made a cool shelf for our PA system to go up in the bed of the truck and carol to people from the car. We used the generator we purchased when our power was out for three days in September and strung up lights around the truck bed even. It was so fun to actually feel good about caroling to people and we had a stinkin blast. No luck on finding a fun version of the sing along Messiah. Besides, in our household we'd only have the baritone and alto parts so that would just sound weird anyway. We spent several evenings this Christmas season driving around looking at Christmas lights all over the valley. Maxwell has grown quite familiar with the phrase "Oook Mama! Pretty Yites". ALLLL the heart eyes!!! We saw a huge variety of light displays- a street full of collaborative neigbors who year after year put out big painted plywood signs telling the story "The Night Before Christmas", a city park, a highly professional 40 minute show spanning 4 properties, and a new favorite "Frosty's Winter Wonderland". Initially I was unimpressed with the display. It seemed like a lot of overkill of those glowing plastic yard displays but a friend pointed out what is special about this one. It's put on by a guy that just collects and stores all these cool lights. It's not fancy. It's not set to music. That is what makes it cool. Patrick said as we were looking at the lights "wow, this must take a lot of power" and I responded with "yeah, his power bill must be pretty high". Scott had to work late that night and when we got home Patrick filled daddy in about the house "Yeah, they had a big power bill". haha. What a hoot. For the last several years we have hosted a party for 4 of our couple friends from our BYU choir days. We typically gather for a dinner and some singing and it's always a good time. This year we gathered virtually and learned about the game "Among Us". Scott and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and have since been trying to get others to join us. So far, no luck on that. LAME. Good thing Scott got us a Nintendo Switch for Christmas so we can play Mario Cart and Just Dance together. Neither of us have ever been "gamers" and it's taken us too long into this pandemic to realize that we needed more games in our life. All of our Christmas morning traditions were in place- the kids view of the living room/ tree being blocked by a blanket, stockings first, presents opened one by one and handed out going from the youngest to oldest choosing which gifts will be opened. Sweet rolls/ monkey pull apart bread for breakfast. Christmas day was perfect. Topping it all off, we got to see Andrea's family. We had all been vigilant enough and Andrea's family had all been vaccinated so- HURRAY! As we roll into the new year I'm filled with hope about what is on the horizon. Notably- getting serious about nursing school. What?! More on that later :)