Emmi Brings Hawaii to us

 Emmi never comes from Hawaii that she doesn't bring wonderful gifts to Neal and I.  Of course, it is Emmi that we want see and be around as much as possible.  Here are some of the items she brought:

My favorite - Macadamia Nuts!  Love them.

Having Emmi and Abby with us for the holidays was the special of special Christmas gifts!  

Gifts from Abby

 Nice surprise from Abby.  She gave me some Christmas presents and also gave Sprout a new toy for Christmas.  She is very thoughtful.  She gave me two gorgeous angel tree ornaments.  They will go gorgeous on our white tree.  

Sprouts new Christmas toy that he loves!

And she also found these beautiful Spode small dishes to add to our Spode Christmas dishes.  I love them.

And we got this Dowdle puzzle.  This will take some time to put together, but will be fun.

Thank you Abby.  I'll send you a picture of the finished puzzle.

Fun Gifts from Susan

I just had to post these fun gifts that Susan came up with for the Gertsons.  Each one got a puzzle that they had to figure out how to get apart and found $10.00 in the center of each puzzle.  Some were harder than others but they were all able to figure them out and get them undone.

On our way home, Neal and I detoured around the block from Annie's to see this house that is lit up!  Not a tree on the place that isn't loaded with lights.

But the best part of all was when we noticed the neighbors sign pointing to the lit up house!  It said Ditto!!

Abby and Antonio gave me some gorgeous Christmas angel ornaments, a cute toy for Sprout and some darling small dishes to go with my Spode collection.  And they gave Neal a puzzle.  The ornaments will be gorgeous on my white Christmas tree.  Sprout loves his new toy.  The Spode dishes will be well used  and Neal and I will have fun putting the puzzle together.  Thanks for all the gifts.  We love you!

Emmi brought us a shopping bag full of all kinds of fun treats from Hawaii.

We will be eating fun treats for weeks to come.  Thanks Emmi for such a fun variety of Hawaiian treats.  We love you!! 

 

Special Gift from Grandma Ross

 Last year Susan found some quilt tops in her basement.  They were quilt tops that mother had put together  but never had them quilted.  Mother and Lila Mae would hand quilt this quilts all the time but these four quilts did not ever get finished.  Susan gave them to me and I decided that I wanted to pass them on the Lynda Ann's girls.  I hired Sally Curtis (in my ward) to quilt them on her quilting machine.  I gave them to the girls for Christmas.  It was an emotional moment as I told them who had made them and that they were a special gift from their great grandmother.  I really believe that mother might have been there for just a moment or two and was pleased that her quilts were being past along to these amazing four granddaughters.

Christmas Eve

 Maren invited Neal and I out to her home for Christmas Eve dinner and games.  Maren fixed a delicious ham dinner with funeral potatoes, rolls and veggies.  It was delicious.  After dinner she had planned some fun games.  The first one was a bunch of strings coming up through a toilet paper roll.  At the end of the string was a colored bow that matched the bow on a plastic up at the table.  What ever string you pulled determined what cup you got.  Under each cup there was a prize.  Two of the cups had a not so fun prize underneath them.

Greg came up with the Nothing gift.  

I came up with a $5.00 bill as my prize.  It was a fun game.

After this game she had wrapped some gifts and lined them up in a circle on the floor.  Everyone had to stand by a gift and then Maren had me read a story and every time "left" or "right" came up in the story the group moved accordingly.  At the end of the story you got the prize you were standing by.  Then they went in order and could either open their gift or trade it for someone else's.  It was fun and I think most of them ended up with what they wanted.  

They were all energy drinks of different kinds.  Some of the kids traded one for one, but mostly kept what they had.  

We also watched a short movie made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints about the birth of the Savior.  It was beautiful.  A nice way to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

Thanks Maren for having us out for a delicious dinner and a fun evening.  Oh, I will add here that their little dog bit me on the leg when I came in the door.  Not sure why she zeroed in on me but I got it.  Apparently she also bit Greg's mom a few weeks ago.  So apparently she doesn't like grandmothers!!  No harm done.  No skin pierced, just a little bruise.  :-)

Cute picture of my kids.

Gathering with Susan

 Emmi, Abby and Antonio both came into town on the Monday before Christmas.  One of the traditions of the Gertsons is to have a late lunch with Susan and then drive on up to Evanston, Wyoming to buy and shoot off fireworks.  We met Susan at 3:00 p.m. at Don Pedros' for some delicious Mexican food.  We were there a couple hours and then the Gertsons' went on to Wyoming and I came back home.  It was a Tuesday and I had been to the temple and up since 3 a.m.  Neal and I were going to a movie that night with the Cutlers and Tucker.  The movie started at 10:30 so I needed to catch a quick nap in there somewhere!  

Emmi was trying to help Annie tie her sweatshirt strings just right.

Annie looking down and not sure she was happy with it.

Nope.  Didn't like it tied so pulled the bow out and left them hanging straight down.

It was a fun afternoon.  We always love spending time with Susan.  She is so much a part of our lives!

Maxfield Siblings Family Gathering

This year the family Christmas party took place at Vern and Nanette's.  Everyone was there except Nelden and Lynn.  They apparently had their own family party that evening and couldn't come.  It was a nice evening, delicious food and present exchange.  This year Lynda Ann and I made trivets for mine and Neal's family gift.  I should add here that when I say Lynda Ann and I (I use the "I" loosely). Annie did all the work and they turned out perfect and were the hit of the gifts. 

 

Christmas Family Gathering

This year we met on the Friday before Christmas.  We had all of the Cutlers, Tucker, Lyndsy and all of Annie's family but Emmi, Abby and Antonio.  They would be arriving on Monday.  We had a ham and turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

After dinner we gathered in the front room and Neal asked each family to report on what service they did with the $200 we had given each family this year.  The decision was made to not exchange presents but instead do a service for someone else.  Maren and Greg's family had a really special experience.  Maren knew of a nurse at work who is a single mom with a little family.  Working and also going to school.  Maren felt like she could really use some help so Maren put the $200 in a card and secretly slipped the envelope with the money into the nurses back pack.  The night of our family gathering, Maren got a text from her supervisor.  This young mother had text the supervisor about how incredible it was to find the money in her backpack and how much she needed it and was so grateful for it.  She had no idea where it came from.

Lynda Ann's family bought Christmas for Foster Kids of Utah.  They concentrated on the teenagers because it seems that the little people always get tons of toys and the teens kind of get forgotten.  A great program to help during this time of the year.

Tucker said he took a name off an Angel Tree.  He said it was a boy that needed clothes and shoes.  He mentioned that it was fun to be able to pick stuff out for a little boy and kind of a challenge because he is so used to shopping for girls, not boys.  

Lyndsy said that she used part of her $200 to buy Christmas presents for her two kids and then some of it to make Christmas presents for her friends kids.  

Neal and I talked to our bishopric and found out we have some families in our ward that are really struggling financially so we bought Walmart gift cards with our money and gave them to the Bishopric to distribute as they saw the need.  

All of the kids said it was a great experience and wanted to do it again next year rather than exchange presents to each other.  I loved that our kids felt that way.  I hope that this will be a tradition each year from now on.  There is something extra special about being able to give and serve others during this time of the year.  My mother was a great example of giving no matter how little you had yourself.  She said you can always find someone who is in worse circumstances than you and you can always find something to share.  

Thank you all for participating in this project.  We love you all and hope that it helped each one of you feel the true meaning of Christmas by concentrating on others in need.

 

Christmas from Susan

Susan is always so generous to me at Christmas.  I loved her gifts this year as always.  I had mentioned to her that if she wanted a suggestion that I would love the Downton Abby movies and Hawaii.  She totally came through and gave me so much more!!

She knows that I love Beans & Brews hot chocolate.  I usually stop there on my way home from the temple on Tuesday mornings.  

And, she also knows how much I love Talbots.  She was way generous!  I will use these gift cards very carefully as the sales start popping up at Talbots.  Usually the end of January is when they start their big sales.  These gift cards will certainly come in handy.  

She also bought me three new recipes books.  Best of Bridge Cookbooks.  I've already browsed through them and found some fun recipes I will want to try.

These are the bottles she gave me which are absolutely perfect for putting home made jam in and then giving them for Christmas.  Very excited to make jam in the late summer and fill them.

As usual, I was very spoiled and very happy with all my gifts.  They will all be well used!!