Christmas Review

Before I start describing all the festivities of this Christmas season, I feel I need to issue a disclaimer. THE PICTURES ARE HORRIBLE! I don't have a great flash, I am terrible at using the manual settings on my camera in poor light (which was the case at every activity) and I have a hard time taking pictures and hosting at the same time. I said this last year, but next year I will have better pictures.

That being said, We had a great month. The events went as follows:
1st- visit Santa at the mall. No children cried and per our luck with mall santa's- there was no line again this year!
4th- relief society cookie exchange/ EQP photo shoot
6th- Dinner, then visit Temple Square to see the lights (with my family)
10th- Extended Grider christmas party- this year we collected food for a charity then met for dinner at Rock Creek pizza (I also had a PTA board christmas party at Rock Creek Pizza this same day)
12th- Fun party at our friends house (adults only!)
13th- Church ward party. Jordan and I were asked to be Mary and Joseph in the play (we even had a few lines- YIKES!) The activities commitee did so much work. They transformed the gym into Bethlahem. it was awesome.
15th&16th- Ellie and Reagan had a little christmas program at Dance. The parents got to come and see what they have been working on so far this year. They also got to wear their pj's and sit on Santa's lap
20th- christmas movie sleep over at Grammy's. The whole grider clan came (but some were party poopers and didn't sleep over) Papa made breakfast in the morning because Grammy just had shoulder surgery.
22nd- Romans family christmas party at the Mattson's. Sadly,it got cancelled due to bad weather and driving conditions.
23rd- The "First ever" Cookie and milk buffet at the Carlson's. Even if our invite was accidental, it was fun and we were happy to go.
24th- We hosted christmas eve dinner at our home complete with nativity, twas the night before christmas reading and magic hot chocolate.
25th- Well, you know, Christmas Day! We went to Grammy's for our traditional brunch of scones, funeral potatos, grandma dottie Jello, clam dip and chips, and ham. Then to Grandma and Grandpa Griders for an evening buffet and get together with the rest of the fam.
26th&27th- We were able to attend the temple and see the ceiling of two families in our ward. It was probalby the highlight of the season!

This is the short list and I didn't even get to do everything I wanted. Jordan traveled a lot and was super busy with work. We are so grateful to have been able to do so much and spend time with our family and friends.

I will now post some of the pictures I was talking about earlier.

















These next pictures are of, what I thought would be, the "wow" factor of christmas morning. They were "pretty excited". This giant box was in the living room for almost a month and they never tried to peak once! Ellie and Reagan have been begging for piano lessons and now get to start in January! (one more thing for me to make them practice!)