This Christmas season was so fun, most especially because we got to share it with Owen. And I'm sorry future children if I don't take as many pictures as I've taken....it's the plight of the children after the oldest. But I will try my very best to document just the same! But this holiday felt so warm and magical. Our tree was beautiful this year. Owen was all about pulling ornaments off the tree and so I put the indestructable, squishy ornaments on the bottom....but the bottom third was still mostly sparse:). He loved unplugging and/or eating the christmas lights.
We also had a 'Little People' Nativity scene set up on a table that Owen could get to and play with. It was fun being able to share the story of Christ's birth. I'd like to believe that he recognized the story. One day we were at church and Owen held his hand out pointing to something on the wall behind me. I looked to see a large painting of Christ. I think he still remembers who He is.
We also got to spend a lot of time with family and friends. We truly are so blessed. Among other events, we were invited to a JJET party where we had a white elephant gift exchange and raced each other in making reindeer antlers with nylons and balloons....who knew?!
We saw A Christmas Carol at the Hale Theatre....it was both of our first times seeing it, I hope it's a new tradition. Pictured below (Fillmores, Gasdiks, and Browns). Our neighbor Rachel Hansen had a part in the play.
A BIG moment that happened and is very noteworthy of mentioning....Mark is starting up a 'voice over' business. He has taken a few classes so far and ordered in December all of his equipment!! It's a new and exciting adventure for him, and I'm so proud of him for taking the risk.
Mark's parents originally were planning to spend Christmas with us. However, unexpectedly Mark's uncle (Rob's brother), passed away while playing hockey in Vermont. Ryan had left behind, though, an incredible legacy and we've heard many stories of his love and influence. So Rob and Kathy traveled to Vermont and stayed for a few weeks to attend his funeral and be with his family. They were missed.
We spent Christmas Eve with Chris and Tara and fam. Dinner was delicious with ham and funeral potatoes and rolls and veggies, complete with pumpkin and apple pies. Afterwards, we took the Calls on a little adventure. It has been a tradition in the past with my family to make ornaments and cookies to deliver to people who worked on Christmas Eve and Christmas. My dad was flying almost every Christmas. So it gave us a fun way to think outside of ourselves and remember all those who also made the sacrifice to work on Christmas. One story I love of my dad is he really got into making sugar cookies one Christmas. And so he decided to make enough to share with all of his passengers on a Christmas day flight. He's the kindest, most genuine man.
Anyways, so we delivered ornaments this Christmas Eve to firefighters at the Lehi fire house, and we went to a Burger King....they were starting to close up and they had this worried look on their faces that our BIG group was going to order.....and when we told them we had ornaments for them the smiles on their faces were priceless. I took the rest of the ornaments later that night to the Utah Valley ER. I think I'm going to take ornaments to the ER every year.
After delivery, Chris was really excited to show us a house with Christmas lights that were synced to the dialogue of the movie Christmas Vacation. Owen LOVED the lights and was bouncing up and down. Then we drove back to the Call's house for present opening and for the Nativity story. The Calls gave Owen a giant stuffed bear and Owen just laughed and laughed looking at the bear. The nativity story was a beautiful reminder of why we celebrate this special time of year.
This is a story that Munner sent all of us that really touched my heart this year.
That Night in the Stable
When your Munner, Marilyn Craft Fox, was in her mid teens, we decided (my parents, Grandpa Bush and I) that we would breed our pony, Cindy, and then sell her foals to help pay for my college expenses in the future. In the next several years, Cindy produced two beautiful colts which were sold and did pay for my first semester at Bloomsburg State Teacher's College -- now called Bloomsburg University.
As the time approached for Cindy to deliver her first foal, I wanted very much to see the birthing process. It was agreed that when the time came for the event to happen, Grandpa Bush would call me to come to the barn and observe the birth.
Finally one evening at our farm cottage, the long-awaited call came from Grandpa Bush. "I think it is time, so bring your blanket and flash light and come on down to the cow barn." I was so excited that my heart was pounding as I gathered my things and drove down to the farm house and parked the car.
Grandpa Bush had brought Cindy into the cow barn and put her in the large corner stall he formerly used for newborn calves. The stall by barn standards was clean and had freshly laid straw in it. He then left Cindy and me and went up to the farm house to go to bed. "If there is any problem, you can come wake me up, " he said.
I laid my blanket on the straw just outside of the stall so that I could keep an eye on things. I kept checking my watch to see what time it was. Then I would shine my flash light on Cindy to see what was happening. It was dark and lonely, and I was trying to calm my fears. My straw bed seemed to require constant rearranging to make a comfortable spot, but it was so hard and the straw felt prickly on my skin. I began to wonder why on earth I came up with this idea -- what was I thinking?
There were bugs and spiders crawling about which seemed to multiply with every swat I took at them. And the smell of cows became over powering to my sensitive nose that had never been bothered by barn smells until that night in the stable. I was trying so hard to stay awake and kept talking to Cindy - - encouraging her and rubbing her head and back thinking maybe that would hasten the birth. The minutes turned to hours, and the hours eventually produced the morning sun streaming through the barn windows which awakened me. I jumped up from my blanket fearing I had missed the birth, and to my surprise, nothing had changed throughout that long, lonely, smelly, dark, uncomfortable night in the stable.
True -- nothing had changed for Cindy who had not given birth. But for me, there had been a great change in my life that night. I had learned at a very young age what it would be like to give birth in a lowly stable stall. Throughout the rest of my life, the story of the birth of the infant Baby Jesus would be so real to me as I would return in my mind to Grandpa Bush's cow barn and that night in the stable. I can still smell the smells and feel the bugs, the prickly straw, the awkwardness of the situation. Yet, a lowly stable was where the King of Kings was born. How I love the Innkeeper, his wife, Joseph and dear Mary who brought forth the Son of God in such a humble and yet holy place. Their night in the stable changed all the world forever. May we each always be a part of the Stable few and not ever get caught up in the Inn crowd.
Mark, Owen, and I celebrated Christmas morning just the three of us the next day. I will always cherish sharing our first Christmas together just us. We ate a yummy breakfast with eggs and bacon and Kathy Ostebo's famous monkey brains. And then we opened lots of presents. Owen pretty well figured out how to pull wrapping paper off. But of course the joy of giving him toys was mainly for us because I think he loved most that wrapping paper. We got him a toy train that he liked watching as the motorized train made it's way around the track.
And of course I cannot forget the Christmas miracle! We have hardly had snow this winter, and the temperatures have been very mild. But on Christmas morning we woke up to 5-6 inches of snow on the ground!
We spent New Years up in Logan playing games, eating good food, and as we like to say 'picking our boogers'. My favorite memory of the trip was looking to the family room at one point, and my family had set themselves up to play a game of Mario Kart. I think the last time we cracked that game out was a decade ago. And memories of my dad the Christmas we got it playing it over and over until he figured out how to beat the games!
The picture at the end is my favorite. Owen loves to play my parents' piano.
