bitter-sweet Christmas

Since Christmas was on Sunday, the kids had to be very patient and wait until after church to open their presents. The kids did look a lot more festive in their Christmas outfits, though.

Once given the green light, they didn't hesitate to tear into their presents. 

 

Each child found a hidden message in one of their presents that told them that Grandma & Grandpa Gasser were going to be arriving in Charlotte in a few short hours to spend a few days with us.  They were super excited!

Andrea didn't get the memo that getting sick on Christmas Day is strictly forbidden.  Not a tradition we want to start.  Poor girl had to stay pretty supine most all day, but she sure did look cute in her new scarf!!

 

True to tradition, Grandma had made some pretty awesome new dresses for the girls and a dapper outfit for our young lady killer. 

 

As you can see in the background of that last picture, Beckett's stocking was still hanging on the mantle along with the new baby's.  While we were definitely missing our sweet baby boy, we are so grateful for the true reason for our celebration:  Christ was born to the virgin Mary and lived a spotless life.  He suffered and died on our behalf, then was raised to immortality.  Because of His birth and mission, we can look forward to celebrating our Savior with Beckett and all of our family.  Thoughts and reminders such as these will always make Christmas a bit merrier.

Christmas Eve

Since our family is growing and getting more ambitious with the Christmas traditions, we've started a few of our own:

Like making far more sugar cookies than we could/should ever eat.  Thankfully, most of the cookies end up on the doorsteps of unsuspecting neighbors/friends.



One of my personal favorites is the Christmas dinner we've adopted:  King Crab legs, artichokes, and spinach pomegranate salad.  Not quite Old Bethlehem style, but, as you can see, no one's complaining.

We read the Nativity story, a book Nana made for us, and talk about the most important Christmas Gift of all--the life and Atonement of our Savior.

This year, we started a new tradition of giving "gifts" to Beckett.  We all came up with things we can do to be sure that we are able to have our family together for eternity.  We write them down and fill his stocking with our little notes.

We sure did miss our little Mr. B during the holidays.  The happiness of the wonderful season was a little more blunted by his absence from our home.  We are so glad, though, to know that, because of the birth, life, and Atonement of our loving Brother Jesus Christ, we can not only live with Beckett again, but can live in the presence of our Heavenly Father again.  We are so grateful for those blessings and our understanding of them. 
We also thought it was a good time to tell the kids that Mommy was pregnant and a new baby would be joining us in a few months.  The extra stocking is off to the right.  They were a little confused at first, but were super excited about a new sibling they could cuddle!

temple trip

The second weekend of December, our friends (at least they were our friends!) the Theodosis's/Theodoses/Theodosi (really, how do you make 'Theodosis' plural?) agreed to take on our kids for a couple days while we drove up to Washington DC to be our friends Liz and Jeremy and their family, who were getting sealed in the DC temple.

The temple does a wonderful job decorating the grounds with Christmas lights and a Nativity scene.  It was beautiful!

The temple is absolutely gorgeous lit up with all the lights around the grounds. 

 

Don't they look so adorable?!

We were pretty happy we made it and got to take part in this wonderful occasion.



 It was not only a privilege to see them sealed for time and all eternity, but a wonderful reminder, as we saw their family kneeling around the altar, that our we have made those same covenants and can have our family forever as well, even if we aren't physically together for now.

We came home and found the kids had thoroughly enjoyed themselves while we were gone, especially since Allison let them build their own gingerbread houses.  Of course, they wouldn't be our children if there wasn't some misbehaving going on!

Coleson is the "sheep" there on the right fighting the shepherd.  Makes for a reverent and uplifting Church Christmas program!

 

santa, singing and decorations

The kids were excited to decorate the tree, especially after getting their new ornaments from Grandma Reese, which were angels and a santa made out of hollowed gourds this year.

Decorating was a bit harder.  I didn't really want to get anything out, because the more holiday decorations I put up, the more I was confirming that time was indeed marching forward.  However, the kids need tradition, I think the more consistency occurs in our home the safer they feel and the more certain they are that things will be okay...SO we got out all of the decorations and tried to create a peaceful atmosphere to remind us of why we truly celebrate Christmas.   

We just happened to find Santa at the mall!  Coleson was happy to tell Santa all about the white tiger and other fun things he wanted for Christmas!

Addellyn made it a few steps closer to Santa this year than ever before...I did have to push her forward a bit.

Addellyn was definitely the CUTEST reindeer during this awesome presentation of Rudolph! (and thank goodness she was close enough to Caleb to mother him a bit during the presentation :))  Now, if only I could figure out how to get my camera to post videos on here...