Nativity

One of my favorite parts of getting ready for Christmas is setting up the nativity. Ours is from Willow Tree, and while it's not anything very unique, rare or valuable, I think it's beautiful. I love the simplicity of the figures, and feel like they give you space to think about what they represent rather than what they look like.

Espen is a pretty big fan too, so we've spent some time over by the table talking about Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, as well as sheep, donkeys and camels. Espen likes the goat, and it's so fun to see how interested he is in this new thing . So far he's been very gentle with the figures I've allowed him to touch and hold, but I don't imagine that will last until next year, when I'm sure we'll be looking for a new place to display them! We set them up over by the window this year, so I have a great view of them from my spot on the couch. I love the simple, quiet reminder of what Christmas is really about for me and my family.

Know Your Fork: Festival of Lights

Every Christmas, Spanish Fork puts on a light display, and this year we took Espen to his first Festival of Lights (not to be confused with the other Spanish Fork Festival of Lights, AKA Diwali). We've been before and loved it, but, oh, it doesn't get much more magical than seeing your own little boy's excitement and delight. There were a few times he looked as though he was going to try to jump out of the window, and he just kept smiling and squealing and bobbing up and down to the music on the radio as he tried to reach out and grab the lights as we drove by. I know it sounds a bit silly, but just being in our little car with my boys, listening to cheesy Christmas music on the radio and looking at the lights, made me so happy I felt like my heart might just burst. How lucky am I to marry a man who is everything I'd ever hoped for, and then to have a little boy who is everything I'd ever dreamed of and more?



While I can't promise you exactly the same perfect, glowing let's-save-this-moment-for-ever experience I had, I can promise you that the Festival of Lights is worth a visit.

Go here for more info, and think to yourself that really, Spanish Fork should give me its key for being such a great ambassador.



Images borrowed here, hereand here because I am a dolt who can't remember her camera.

Christmassy Christmas!

We started our Christmas season on a bit of an untimely note by first being delayed a day going home by a snow storm, and then when we got back, both of my boys caught some kind of stomach bug. Mercifully, I escaped, but perhaps not so mercifully, that left me the grown up in charge for a lot of the time. Oh, it is sad to see your little guy feel so miserable! Fortunately, Espen is a surprisingly resilient little guy who always bounces back quickly. More than once I'd be cleaning him up after the latest "incident", and he'd just look up and me and smile and babble. I adore that little boy!

Probably more than ever before, I keep staring at the calendar in panic and realizing just how much I want to take care of before Christmas, and how little time there is to do it. I've never been this stressed out about Christmas before - does motherhood make you feel like this? Yikes.

Anyway, I am hoping to up the Christmas cheer factor here on the ol' blog, so (barring any more uncooperative weather or disease) expect some spastic updates from me in the week to come.

Until then, enjoy this little playlist that I put together with some of my Christmassy faves. There are a few Norwegian carols in there, but you, my friend, are just the kind of person who doesn't get all bunchy about things like that. No, you enjoy expanding your cultural horizons. And that is why I like you.