A Festivus for the Rest-of-Us!

Merry Christmas everyone! Hooray for holidays! Especially hooray for when they are all finally over! Does anyone else loose their mind a little bit in December? Anyone? Just me? Okay. Well, here are some of the Christmas highlights:
Brody's preschool Christmas program. Soooo cute! They sang lots of songs, most of them involving a hat to wear with the song (like a crown for 'We Three Kings', antlers for 'Rudolph', etc). Brody was so funny, I don't know if he actually sang many songs, mostly he danced around in front. But he looked so cute, he was totally happy, and there was minimal nose picking so I think the whole thing was a grand success! We got there ten minutes early so we could get a good seat. However, everyone else had gotten there fifteen minutes early, to get a good seat. So we didn't really get any good pictures of him singing, mostly just pictures of some brunette with an unfortunate perm. At the end of the program you will never believe who showed up- the REAL Santa Claus!!! Now Brody doesn't get excited when he sees Santa at the mall or ward parties because apparently those aren't the real Santa. But this, he told me, was the real deal! So Brody was way excited to tell Mr. Claus what he had been telling me for weeks- for Christmas he wanted a big bouncy ball. Luckily Santa was able to deliver on that wish!


We got to spend an afternoon with my sweet Grandma and Grandpa Dickerson. I love my grandparents and it was so wonderful to visit with them. We of course got fed until we could no longer zip up our pants. It would not be a successful trip to Grandma's otherwise.

We had the Anderson Family Christmas Eve Party-Palooza at Amy's house (thanks again for hosting, did I mention you're awesome?). Grandma Judy carried on the tradition of her mother and reenacted the nativity. Brody was the most adorable shepherd ever. During his part he kept patting baby Jesus on the head. Then he started pulling all the pillows off of Amy's couch and putting them around the baby. Later he told me he was building a tent for baby Jesus because he was worried that the baby might get cold. Awwwww.

After the party we headed up to Wyoming. We got there late and the kiddos were asleep by the time we arrived. On Christmas morning I got tired of waiting so I went and woke Brody up. I thought he would be so excited to come open presents. I forgot that he takes a while to wake up- even on Christmas apparently.

Although after a while he started to get excited.

No major Christmas surprises this year. Just a joyous day spent with family. It was so great to talk to Sister Winn on the phone. She is the best missionary. Riley had fun because my parents told him that he got to help organize their basement! Yay! Brody and Aubrey helped by table surfing. I helped by looking at old pictures. So everyone contributed.

So our Christmas was great. Maybe I'll do it again next year.