Wood Works: Christmas Activities

For Thanksgiving and Christmas we knew we would be on our own so we planned lots of fun activities to help us get into the spirit of the season.

The Ward Christmas party is always a good place to feel that Christmas spirit! We enjoyed a yummy breakfast, planned to give service, and received a visit from jolly ol' St. Nick. There were no tears this year, but no one quite mustered the courage to look Santa directly in the eyes.

Tate told Santa that he wanted a Lego Chima set, a scooter, and a shovel (???, that must be from his Wood man roots).

Grant told Santa he wanted a laser gun, nothing else. This was a new revelation to us, maybe slightly influenced by the kids in line next to him :)

We upgraded our tree this year and got a really tall, bright one. I actually was able to get quite a few Christmas decorations on super sale after Christmas last year, so it was fun to decorate the house together.

The boys loved decorating the tree. There is something so sweet about little pajama-clad boys getting excited and putting ornaments on their Christmas tree.

I told you that tree was bright! It was almost jarring to look directly at it.
I almost expected it to go up like a Roman candle at any moment but I'm happy to report that it made it through the Season without even a whiff of the sharp tang that heralds the coming of a brilliant electrical fire.

We enjoyed hot chocolate and marshmallows on several occasions. It just wouldn't be Christmas without them!

We were able to enjoy the "Journey to Bethlehem" for the 2nd year at the 7th Day Adventist Church. They do a great job making it feel like you are a traveler in Bethlehem when Christ was born. The Roman guards might be a slightly overzealous in their heckling of us "Jews" though, seeing how Tate only remembers "those guys on horses who yelled at us", but overall the production is great and a tradition I would repeat every year if we stayed here.

We enjoyed watching Grant's "Holiday performance" (because the school might offend someone by saying the C-word during Christmas). He looked so handsome in his church clothes and recited his part perfectly!

You can see him holding the mic right before his speaking part. For some reason we didn't get a photo of him giving his part, but rest assured it was moving and poetic :)

This is my attempt at a family picture after Grant's performance. At least Grant is looking. The other two couldn't peel their eyes off the model bull elk in the glass case. In their defense, it was pretty cool.

Tate also had a Christmas performance this year. Since he goes to a Methodist preschool, the program was Christ based, so that was nice. The kids were cute and did great with their songs.

Tate, always the ham bone.

We all enjoyed cookies after his program, and someone's pregnant belly photo bombed us.

Another Christmas tradition is eating, I mean, making gingerbread houses. I tried something different this year and used melted sugar to hold the houses together. It's a little tricky to work with and doesn't taste great if you try to eat that part of the house later, but man does it hold those houses together! It's the concrete of the candy world.
Just melt sugar in a pan then spread it on the edges of the graham crackers and stick them together. When the sugar cools the cracker will break before the sugar joint will- a welcome change from last year when we used frosting and spent the whole time trying (unsuccessfully) to keep our houses from collapsing.

Grant was very careful in designing and decorating his house and the finished product was almost too cute to eat! Almost...

Luke spent the majority of the night shoveling candy into his mouth. What can you really expect when a two year old is sitting at a table literally covered in candy?

Tate and Luke with Tate's and my finished houses. Pretty cute, huh?

Ryan took a lesson from Luke's book and didn't waste any time with the decorating part of things. It seems that Ryan can overcome his dislike for frosting when M&M's are involved.

There are always extra treats lying around during the Holidays, and on some occasions Luke did whatever he could to get his hands on them. One day he ran off and disappeared after his bath. After a minute of trying to find him in the bedrooms, I finally discovered that he was hiding under the kitchen table with a plate of goodies that he was about to devour. Mean old Mom has to ruin everything!

A new activity we tried this year was to attend the Luminaria at the local arboretum. There were thousands of lighted candles in white bags illuminating a mile long path through the arboretum.