Christmas 2021

 Good that I'm finally writing about this in March...

Christmas day felt so relaxed this year. It was nice. But also just a tad boring, if I'm honest. Opening presents was the really fun part. I know we shouldn't be all commercial and stuff, but it's fun to get and give presents! Aaron's favorite present I gave him was the shirt he is wearing in the picture above. The kids gave me the sweetest thing. It was a story! They wrote a story for me! Actually, Scotty dictated the story to Annie who wrote it down. And then Annie made a really cute box to put it in. I loved it so much. I totally cried. It was just the perfect gift. 

A week or two before Christmas, my parents sent us a big box of homemade Christmas goodies. There were fudge ripple bars and oatmeal cake and rice krispy treats and all the yummy things. They put so much work and love into it, and it was so fun and old-fashioned to get something like that in the mail. I didn't take a picture. We ate it all up.

Aaron's parents also gave a time-intensive, thoughtful give this year. They made a personalized box for each grandchild. It is meant to be a treasure box, a place to put all of their precious things. And they wrote a really sweet note to each grandchild and to me and Aaron. 

This year we also had a fun Christmas Eve adventure. In the last year or two we connected with the Lundgrens in our ward over our shared Scandinavian heritage. We discovered that both of our families have Scandinavian Christmas traditions. So we vowed to do those together! And we did. We brought the rice pudding. They brought the Swedish meatballs. It was a feast. We also did Christmas songs on hand bells.