On Boxing Day we met up with our peeps and were at the MET before it even opened it’s doors.

I just love that place. It makes my heart sing!

Then we headed over to our favorite place to grab a burger!

Great people, great sights, great grubbins.

‘Twas a simply marvelous day!

In case you didn’t get one by mail, here it is for your viewing pleasure on the world wide web.

Front

Back

I love Christmas cards but I hate them.

I love designing one every year. I love getting cards from people. But then when it comes time to send them THAT is when I start to hate them. My Christmas card list stinks! I have three or four and they are all bad, but together they are a total nightmare.

At a certain point in the season, I just give up. Even if I contacted someone and asked for their address, I might not get around to sending the card because I am totally overwhelmed by the whole experience. Or you might have moved and I sent it to your old address. This kind of detail work is not my forte, and then when you add to the fact it’s Christmas time and we have a million things going on, I start to feel buried alive.

Then this year I didn’t order enough (thanks to my crappy lists), so we didn’t send them to our local ward members because I hated the thought of someone getting left out and going over to a mutual friends house and seeing that they didn’t get a card from us and feeling bad. It’s not that I think we are that important, I swear! It’s just that it has happened to me in the past and it hurt my “tender plant”  little feelings. I did not want to hurt anyone, in case, they, like me have”tender plant” little feelings.

If you didn’t get a card from us this year it is NOT because we don’t love you, it is because I am a dork. I hope you can forgive me, it seriously isn’t personal – I just gave up on the cards and decided to enjoy the season.

(BTW, in years past Jan has taken the photos for our card but this years photos were taken by my friend Margie – if you would like her to take your photos go here for her info. She’s great!)

Our Christmas was grand!

Hope yours was too.

I made this little collage to give you a peek into Christmas in the land of Dawesome.

In 10 years of marriage this was the FIRST year we stayed home!

As Christmas fell on a Sunday we got to get dressed up in the middle of the day and go to church. It was awesome! I love getting dressed up for a good cause, and what cause could be better?

Ellis got ONE present this year, and he is wearing it in the center photo. He looks like a fleshy little Christmas Buddha. If such a thing could exist.

I finally got my wish of color coordinating ALL the presents under the tree. (Yes, I should probably see a therapist about my need to matchy-match everything).

Leave it to Jesus to have his birthday be the most wonderful day of the year! The ONLY being whose birthday is all about others!

A few nights ago Jan told us that growing up his brother Kai always wanted to sing happy birthday to Jesus every year and then without fail, somehow managed to forget. So in honor of our sweet Uncle Kai we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.

It was really tender.

I think we have a new tradition!

Happy Christmas, everybody!

Every six months our number comes up and we get the assignment to clean our ward building. This year our number came up on Christmas Eve.

I wont lie to you, I was bummed.

I actually said to Jan, “Honey, you are in the bishopric. YOU make the assignments. Are there NO perks?”

I am a fool and must stand rebuked.

Who would have thought that cleaning the church would be one of my favorite experiences of the Christmas season???

It helped that we were cleaning the building with one of the most darling families in our ward.

At one point I had six kids trailing after me with paper towels in their hands while I squirted Windex on all the windows. I was singing and clicking my heals (I really was, I am not making this up) as they ran behind me laughing.

The kids were SO cute! We had the iPhone playing the sound track to the new Muppet Movie as they emptied trash cans and dusted.

It was a total BLAST.

AND we walked away with these disposable gloves.

Millie and Clara decided they were Santa and Rudolph. Oh, how we laughed!

Tonight, for the fourth year running, we watched, “It’s A Wonderful Life” and the girls are sleeping next to the Christmas tree. As I type this I can hear their beautiful, deep, heavy bedtime breathing. It is so sweet!

I think this film is perfect. It is just jam packed with TRUTH and so full of LOVE and the SPIRIT.

I also think this might have been the first year that Millie actually started to “get it”.

And you know what I love most, because I believe this film is packed with goodness and truth, it will never get stale or boring or worn out — and the reason why, is that when something is true it grows with you. It keeps giving and teaching and helping you as the years roll on.

Like that awesome nun, Sister Wendy, explained – art that is true will always surprise  and enlighten you. As you change and mature, it does too!

This year, for our treat, we shared a box of chocolates.

(check out the chocolate on Millie’s upper lip! How cute is that?!)

If you are looking for some Christmas magic, may I suggest you make a nest of blankets and pillows (it doesn’t need to be fancy) next to the Christmas tree, in a perfectly still house and then lay down next to your three year old and let them talk.

Just listen.

You don’t need to say a single thing.

It’s pure MAGIC!

Clara told me how much she wished she could have a goat, “like the people in the movie” and how much her heart longed for a “stuffed animal parrot that she could call Bella & that it would be her favorite parrot in the whole wide world” and she would “share it with Millie.”

It is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful life!

Just wanted to report that I really felt the Christmas spirit while making this here trifle

for our wonderful Jewish neighbors, to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah.

This glorious trifle was made of several layers: homemade chocolate cake, German chocolate frosting, chocolate mousse, and whipped cream. It was absolutely tasty, if I do say so myself.

Get ready for a cutesie story (’tis the season) after all:

When my family moved from Utah to New York we had never met a Jewish person and never heard of a holiday called Hanukkah. So one of the kids said, “Merry Christmas and a Happy Harmonica” because that is what they thought everyone else was saying when they heard people wishing each other a Happy Hanukkah.

Ah, bless! Isn’t that sort of darling?

Yes, that’s it, bless! God bless us – every last one of us!

I just LOVE this time of year!!

A few days ago Ellis pulled a full length mirror off the door in his sisters’ bedroom.

I know.

I know.

He’s a boy.

And yes, I am shaking in my boots.

There! I admit it!

If you are snickering to yourself that I have given birth to The Incredible Hulk and my once serene lifestyle will never be the same, well, you are not very nice, are you?

[J/k]

Go ahead!

Snicker all you want.

We Dawson females know how to make the best of a bad situation.

Just look how we used the mirror that Ellis pulled down:

To capture our church attire!

If it weren’t for our little Hulk you couldn’t clap eyes on the world’s most awesome yellow skirt and two of the cutest girls you ever will see.

the end.

(for now)

Ellis, my good man,

You are seven months old. I’m gobsmacked, it felt like just yesterday you were brand spanking new. As I heft your 22.5 pounds around town, you make sure that I know you are getting older (and bigger) every, single day.

I just love you.

I love getting to know you.

Lately, as you have been learning to crawl, there has been much frustration. I sense that you want to get going. I want you to get going for your sake and I am positively frightened for when you do start motoring around the joint, because I am going to have to be constantly “on duty”. I have been in this place before with your sisters, but something tells me this time it’s going to be more intense. 🙂

Sometimes when you look at me I feel like we are sharing a joke or a secret. I don’t know how to describe it but I hope for it and wait for it every day. I just love it when we lock eyes and it happens. Ive got it bad.

I wanted to be sure to remember something you did recently – or at least how I perceived what you did. We were over at a dear friend’s house. A week prior she had suffered a very hard and sad thing, having to do with a baby. As we said good-bye she asked if she could hold you. I passed you off and you put your hands up to her face, you looked right at her, smiled then leaned into her and rested your head on her shoulder. It was as if you knew how much she needed that most wonderful “baby love” unique to babies the world over. It was so sweet and such a gift. It was as if you sensed how much a snuggle would mean to her. It was just neat to be there and watch the two of you.

If you ever read this I want you to know that love is the most powerful thing there is. And you, my little baby boy, you give this powerful stuff to us by the bucket loads ever single day. As long as we can give and receive love – our lives are not insignificant.

I think you are doing a fine job.

Good work, my boy!

Keep shining, and I will try my best to keep up with you.

I love you and am so glad you are here and that you belong to us, and we belong to you.

Love,

Yo Mama

…Christmas

around these parts.

And we don’t mind it one little bit!

P.S. Every year I try to add a little something to the decorations. Slowly but surely building up the old stock pile ‘o decorations, as it were. This year I added the simplest thing to the girls room:

These white and red felt garlands, and then a glitter covered letter ornament, one “M” and one “C”, because remember how much I like things when they are monogrammed?

Last year we decorated the girl’s doll house, but I didn’t post about it because I think I barely had the strength to do it in the first place, let alone blog about it. Jan was out of town, I was pregnant and I remember thinking, “What am I doing?! This is nuts!” and then I remembered the blood of Kevin Kelly courses through my veins and it all made sense. You should see the way my dad decorates the house at Christmas, and it would make sense to you too.

PPS Isn’t Millie a cute Mary? And how about that Joseph! Have you ever seen a Joseph with that much “zip”, just look at his eyes, they are twinkling!

HOORAY FOR CHRISTMAS!

The other night our family went on a Sunday walk. It was so pleasant.

At one point I looked up and this is what I saw,

Then I looked down and saw this,

I just felt blessed.

I’m so thankful for these people.

The demands of young family life can feel so relentless at times. It bugs me when old ladies say things to me like, “Enjoy them, they don’t stay this way forever.” I just want to say to them, “I’m guessing you got to go to the bathroom by yourself today, and have been for the last 30 years or so.” (I love my mom because she REMEMBERS how hard this time is and can be – thanks, mom!) But, the old ladies do have a point, and that is part of the challenge – enjoying when you are constantly interrupted, when you can’t get anything done, when you haven’t had more than 15 mins of time to yourself, when you have given, and given and given and nobody appreciates a single thing you’ve done and there is still an endless list of demands and laundry.

I don’t want to be a downer, but the truth is, it’s not easy.

But it is also true that it is positively wonderful.

In the midst of the struggle come shining through the sweetest moments.

So gentle and simultaneously, so powerful.