Holiday Cheer

Christmas is by far my favorite time of year. I never get tired of feeling the magic of the season, the Spirit all around, or the wonderful time spent with family and friends. This year was no different, and I wanted to share just a few pictures of Christmas at the Partridge house.

We had a great dinner and Family Home Evening together with Chris & Cassi and Brett & Stephanie. We all brought homemade soups (well, 2/3 of us brought homemade ;) ), and then had fun building gingerbread houses. Brett and I joined forces to create an engineering marvel that defied the laws of physics. . .for a while. Shortly after this picture was taken the whole thing imploded. Everybody had a lot of fun and went home with a treat.

This is the first year we have not traveled. We stayed at home, and Jennifer's parents drove up from Scottsdale, and Melissa and Milad flew in from New York. It was great having company here. There was plenty of time to play, shop, and cook (eat!), and visit. The boys especially had a great time playing with everybody. I met Milad for the first time at Thanksgiving, and it was nice to get to know him a little better. Having extra hands around definitely made for light work. Grandma and Grandpa even volunteered to take care of the boys so Jennifer and I could have a night out together -- our first one in quite some time.

In Jennifer's family, one of the Christmas Eve traditions is a nice sit-down dinner with family and friends. Paul and Irene cooked a marvelous meal, complete with City Kitchen prime rib. We invited our next door neighbors, and our across-the-street neighbors over, and after dinner each family did a short Christmas presentation. The "program" concluded with all the kids acting out the Nativity scene. By the end of the evening we had all agreed that we need to spend more time together as neighbors. I think we all decided that there WILL be a neighborhood barbecue at least once a week during the spring and summer.

Christmas day was wonderful. The boys let us sleep in just a little before coming in to wake us up. Everybody loved their gifts, we even heard Thank-You's from the boys. In another Christmas miracle, there was absolutely no crying because somebody didn't get exactly what they wanted, no fighting over new toys, just a wonderful, fun holiday spirit. After opening about half of the presents, we all pitched in helped Paul make a great hot breakfast (one of my favorite parts of having a day off!).



The boys had a good time playing with their new toys while Jennifer and I got ready to head up to Salt Lake. We went to a movie at the Gateway and spent the night at the Anniversary Inn (to celebrate our anniversary, of course). The next day we drove through the snow up to Cache Valley to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen. We had a lot of fun over the next couple of days before it was time to say goodbye.

Now it's time to take the tree down, pack up the decorations, and get ready for the New Year. Hopefully, in spite of new goals, new routines, new opportunities, and new challenges, we'll all keep this Holiday Cheer with us for a very long time. Merry Christmas!