The Farnsworth Family: White Christmas

Merry Christmas!! Well Christmas finally came and the kids were so excited. For about a week before Christmas Colby began practicing driving his sleigh of reindeer. He put the kitchen chairs in a row, attached his jump ropes as reins and went to town telling the "reindeer" to go faster and higher. I guess he was practicing to be the next Santa! (That and he had been watching The Santa Clause movie.)

We have also been working really hard on doing good deeds for our secret family members. Each time we would do something nice for that person, we got to put a straw in our manger. As you can see, we were able to fill our manger with straw and our Baby Jesus was able to sleep snugly on Christmas Eve. My first baby doll, Ralph, was the lucky one chosen to be our Baby Jesus.

Unfortunately, we were not as lucky as we had hoped and Logan ended up getting the Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease from the Morwood cousins. He spent the last few days quarantined to his room while Russell and I disinfected the entire house and all of the toys. We made all of the kids wash their hands multiple times a day; in fact, all of our hands were red from washing so much. Merry Christmas to us we got to have sick kids on Christmas! My main concern at the time was preventing Charlotte from catching the disease. Luckily so far she hasn't and neither has anyone else besides Logan.

Russell worked on Christmas Eve again this year so we opened our new Christmas PJs on the 23rd instead. We even let Logan out of his room to open the presents. We made the poor kid wear gloves and sit on his own special blanket but at least he was with us.

As you can see the kids really liked them. Colby was the funniest. His pajamas said "Bear Hug" and pictures a bear hugging him on the shirt so Colby went around to everyone yelling "Bear Hug!" and then would practically knock us down giving us bear hugs. He was so crazy!

Here we are in our new pajamas ready for bed on Christmas Eve eve night.

Christmas Eve was spent very low key. I don't even think we got dressed. But then why would we, we were quarantined to our house so we couldn't go any where. We spent the day watching Christmas movies and relaxing. Logan's spots were looking much better so I let him come downstairs and watch the movies with us as long as he stayed on his special spot on the blanket and had his gloves on.

That night we all wrote our letters to Santa and set out the cookies. Emily asked for Rollerblades and church shoes. Colby asked for more Star Wars Lego's and a new tire for his bike. Logan asked for a remote controlled car and he also wanted snow. The kids all laughed at me as I wrote Charlotte's letter. I wrote, "Dear Santa, I have been the best kid ever. Much better than my brothers and sister. Please bring me some diapers because I really need them. Thank you and Merry Christmas. From Charlotte." For some reason the other kids thought that asking for diapers was a pretty funny request. I thought it was very practical.

The kids finally went to bed after their excitement lost to exhaustion. Then next morning we woke up to find that Santa had indeed found our house and got in even though we do not have a chimney.

He filled our stockings as well as our front room with gifts and candy. There was no way we could keep Logan in his room on Christmas so he put back on his gloves and came out with the rest of the family. If we get sick, so be it, it was Christmas. Germs take a day off on Christmas, right?

Emily and Colby both got spoiled with new bikes. They both also got what they asked for Rollerblades and Star Wars Lego's. Emily also got a huge book about all things American Girl dolls as well as a few other little things. Colby had a blast with his Lego's and spent the rest of the day putting them together.

Logan and Charlotte also had a good Christmas. As you can see Logan got his remote controlled car and had a lot of fun driving it around all morning. He also got a tent and sleeping bag which was perfect because we just put all of his stuff in his tent and he spent most of the day in there too. Charlotte's first Christmas was really fun. She didn't really know what was going on but we had a good time showing her all of her presents. She got a baby doll and of course some diapers!

We played all morning until the kids started complaining they were hungry. We got dressed and ready for the day and had our traditional Christmas breakfast. Ham and eggs and cinnamon rolls with egg nog. After breakfast it was time to open the presents under the tree.

Colby and Logan got more Lego's. Colby's favorite present was his very own pocket knife set from Emily. Logan also got his own Book of Mormon and scripture case for church since he will now be going into the Sunbeams!

Emily and Charlotte also got some nice gifts. Emily got new church shoes and a new watch from her brothers. She has really enjoyed this watch and tells us what time it is just about every minute of the day. Because the watch has a stopwatch feature, she has been timing herself with everything she does too. I also got some really great gifts from Russell and the kids. I got new snow boots so that now my feet won't be cold in the snow (Yeah!) and new kitchen knives. All of my knives are really dull and crappy so now we have some really nice ones finally (Yes!). Emily got me a Snuggie which is something I never though I would use but I use that thing All. The. Time! In fact I am wearing it right now as I type!

Russell's only wish was for a new concealed weapon holster. He wanted an in-waist one so that he could tuck in his shirt. So he got what he wanted. He also received new shoes, a belt, a watch, and a new pillow from the kids. The belt he got was picked out by Colby. It is a reversible belt that is brown on one side and camouflaged on the other side. Colby said this would be perfect because he could wear it deer hunting!

I think this second picture is so cute. Each of the kids gave each other a Canyon Colt hat. They were excited to get a hat to wear on Super Spirit Fridays. They have been wearing them ever since.

And finally, Logan got his wish from Santa, it snowed! I don't mean just a little skiff here or there, it dumped 16 inches during the night and continued to snow all of Christmas day.

So we truly had a white Christmas this year. There was so much snow that our Stake President cancelled church even though it was Christmas. Church was only going to be Sacrament Meeting anyway but now it was cancelled. I didn't think anything got cancelled for snow reasons in Cache Valley. Not that we were going anyway with Logan being sick but still.

In the afternoon, Russell, Emily and Colby braved the cold and went out to shovel the driveway and sidewalks (OK and play). Luckily our awesome neighbor, Brad Lee, came over with his snow blower and helped us out or we would probably still be trying to shovel that much snow off our driveway.

The snow even filled up our window wells! Russell had to shovel that snow away from the windows too so that it wouldn't melt and go inside the house. Well thank you Logan for wishing for snow on Christmas. We got plenty!