DECEMBER - CHRISTMAS AND FAMILY AND LOTS OF FUN

Our month started with attending Charlotte's musical, Hattie's Echo, performed at BYU. She had been working on this production for five years and now, for the first time, it has been preformed live on stage. We've seen earlier revisions done as a reader's theater but never on a stage with actors, sets, and props. It was a wonderful evening spent. We were so proud of our granddaughter as we were totally blown away by the whole production and the message of hope and dependence on each other, including our ancestors. Todd and Kailee and Ryan all saw the show and were equally in awe of the production. Todd has even committed to help finance future productions of this show in larger venues. Charlotte's professors and the Dean of the drama department at BYU are equally on board to push this show at Education Week and further, if possible. It was an amazing show and should be seen by more people than the four day run that happened this month. 

The cast which included Maggie and Kacey.
Allison was the sound person.

After the production

The very next morning was our Ward Christmas party. We had decided, as a committee, to have a breakfast with the theme of 'Christmas Morning Magic.' We had to rely on our committee to set the hall up Friday evening while we were at Charlotte's production. They did an incredible job and the hall and tables looked amazing. We served 2 kinds of breakfast casseroles, one with ham and one with sausage. There was also fruit, cinnamon, orange and raspberry rolls, milk, orange juice, and hot chocolate. We even had individual boxes of cold cereal for the children. The food was a great hit as was Santa Claus. After breakfast, we invited all the primary children to come sit down in front of the stage. We sang several Christmas songs before the Bishop gave a sweet talk to the children about the first Christmas morning. He even sat down on the floor with them so they could hear him. After another couple of songs, we opened the curtains to reveal Santa. The children went crazy and rushed up on the stage to talk to him. We were so grateful that Casey agreed to be our Santa. He was wonderful.

The centerpieces were elegantly wrapped presents.
I added a sign that read, 'The magic of Christmas is
not in the presents but in Christ's presence.'

Casey made a perfect Santa

Once the ward party was over it was time to decorate our home. After the weekend to recover, Paul and I embarked on putting up our decorations. Of course, we put up all our Santa's including our big Santa outside. This year, we added two lit presents to put next to Santa on our porch. They looked really good there. When our college grandchildren came up for Sunday dinner that next week, they were blown away by the number of Santa's sitting out and on the tree. (I love Santas but was proud of myself that I didn't buy any this year.) Mindi and Jon did add to our collection with a Florida beach Santa. 

Our Santa tree

The new Florida beach going Santa

A Christmas tradition of baking tea rings and giving them to friends and neighbors was continued this year. I baked and we delivered 21. Kymberly Wynne texted me right after we delivered theirs to tell us that her daughter took a picture of it and sent it to the family group post with the message 'It has arrived!!' The effort to bake them is worth it knowing that the tea rings are loved.

Another Christmas tradition is the Giving Machine. Every year, we visit the machine in the University mall to make a donation there. This year we bought a goat and 2 chickens to be sent to a family in a third world country. We love this way of giving to those in need around the world. 

Before Christmas, we attended a piano recital for Aria and a school Christmas program for both Aria and Avery. We were excited to hear Aria play the piano. The last time we attended a recital, she wouldn't go up and play her piece. This time she did a great job playing a rather difficult piece. So proud of her. 

Playing a duet with her teacher.

The girl's school Christmas program was fun. Each grade level took the stage to perform two or three songs. Avery was darling in her Christmas dress and candy cane headband. Aria insisted on wearing overall and high heels. She had called Kailee before the show to bring her the heels, Kailee couldn't find them so she had to go buy her a pair and run them to the school. We were glad she did that as she could save us seats on the front row. Both girls seemed to enjoy performing their songs. We were proud of them.

One other thing happened in December before Christmas. We were able to see Julia perform with her drill team. They were in a competition held at Mountain Ridge High School in Herriman.  We met Ryan and Katie and family there. We enjoyed being with them and watching Julia perform. She did great. The competition lasted most of the day but we just stayed for one of her two dances. They placed third.

We were excited when Jon announced that they were coming to Utah to spend Christmas with us. They didn't arrive until the 21st but lots of packages from them came before that. We counted over 40 packages delivered to our home. They had decided to do their Christmas shopping in Florida and have the presents shipped to our home. 

Many more packages came after this picture was taken

This brings us to Christmas Eve. For our candle light dinner, we had a Fillet and Chicken Oscar with broccoli and Bearnaise sauce. A spinach/strawberry salad, baked potatoes, and a sugar plum completed our meal. It was a big hit with nothing left over. The rest of the evening was spent wrapping last minute gifts. Just before bedtime, Jon carefully set out all the presents under the tree, a Millat tradition that Jon has adopted. I used to be the one to stay up later than anyone else to make sure the presents were placed beautifully under the tree. 

Christmas morning got a later start as there were no young children to wake everyone up early. When Clark, Olivia, and Carly finally got up, they opened their stockings and then the presents were handed out by Jon. Those 40 plus packages turned out to be wonderful gifts for all of us. They gave us 3 games made out of acrylic that look great sitting out on our coffee table for all to play.....and play they did. When Todd's family came up later in the day, his girls loved playing with them. Todd and Kailee brought up the gifts purchased for their kids from the money we sent them. The kids opened them up here so we could see what we got them. They also brought up a present for us - gift cards for Ruth Cris. It was a wonderful Christmas and so different from the many years Paul and I have spent Christmas eve and day by ourselves. 

Jon helping Lincoln open his present from us.

The day after Christmas, Carly had her wisdom teeth taken out and on that same day Jon picked up 4 of his 5 boy and brought them to Heber to hang out. They loved the acrylic games and play them for a long time before turning their attention a puzzle of Pleasant Grove that Paul got for Christmas. Mindi fixed a spaghetti dinner for everyone after which Jon gave them their Christmas presents - shoes and money. We gave them $50 gift cards. It was good to see our grandsons. Jon and Mindi flew out on Thursday, the 28th. Before they boarded the plane, Mindi sent us a text thanking us for a wonderful Christmas and said that they dibs the next 10 Christmases with us. We would love that.

Carly with her ice pack on to prevent swelling

On the night of the 28th, Andrea and Casey and Jillian and Lydia drove in from Oregon. They spent the night with us before heading up to Bear Lake for a Westover family reunion. It lasted until New Year's day when the whole Westover clan came to stay with us. Unfortunately, Andrea and Casey and Lydia had to leave early the next morning to get back to Oregon for school and seminary. (Andrea and Casey are now teaching early morning seminary.) We were glad that the rest of the Westovers could stay longer with us. They were here Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning.  We loved having them here and watching them laugh and play together as four sisters and one brother in law.  Jillian had to go back to Rexburg on Friday so everyone left Thursday after a late sourdough waffle breakfast. They wanted to hang out in Provo for a day before taking Jillian to the airport to catch the shuttle to Rexburg.

Now for some fun memes:

I guess these two aren't so fun as they are too true!!!!

And on a more serious note:

And that's it for 2023    

A UNIQUE THANKSGIVING WEEKEND HIGHLIGHTS THIS MONTH

 This Thanksgiving was a bit different then most in the past. We traveled to St. George to spend it with Ryan's family. We arrived on Wednesday and on Thursday fixed the traditional Thanksgiving dinner except for the turkey. I was hoping to show Ryan and Katie how to cook a turkey as they had never cooked one before. Katie went out to buy a turkey and came home with a turkey that was already cooked. She paid $8.00 a pound for it so the turkey cost over $80.00. A raw 10 pound turkey would be maybe $15.00 at the most. We couldn't stuff the already cooked turkey so I made stuffing, wrapped it in tin foil, and baked it in the oven. It was surprisingly good. The already cooked turkey didn't have much drippings for a gravy so Ryan bought a package of turkey gravy mix along with 3 bottles of turkey gravy at $6.00 a bottle!!!! That was an expensive Thanksgiving dinner, for sure. One positive was that we didn't have to get up real early to put a raw turkey in the oven as the already cooked one only took 2 hours to heat up. This was a good thing as we had to be leaving for Las Vegas by 4:00 to make it to a BYU basketball tournament.

The already cooked turkey

The girls and Nathan made the rolls and the pies

We left St. George with Ryan's family and traveled to Las Vegas where checked into our Worldmark condos. The basketball tournament was being held at the Mandalay Bay resort. There were 4 teams competing in the tournament and BYU played the second game of the night. They won that game quite handily. Friday, we just hung out at the condos till the final games that night. BYU fought hard to come out on top to win the tournament. It was an exciting time, especially when Coach Pope invited the BYU fans to come down on the court to take pictures with the players. Nathan was flying high after he got pictures with the coach and some of his favorite players.

The crowd coming down onto the floor

With Robinson

Coach Pope

With 'Foose' as the crowd refers to him

We drove back to  Ran's home in St. George the next morning where we watched a BYU football game. They lost in double overtime which was very disappointing. With that loss, the team did not qualify for a bowl game as they had 5 wins and 5 loses. Not the best year for them. That night we went to see Grace perform in a new musical of the Christmas Carol. It was a performance with mainly a young people in the cast but it was an incredible show. Grace sang a solo and was very good in her part of an old girlfriend of Scrooge. I haven't really enjoyed the movies I've seen of the Christmas Carol as they are pretty dark. This show added music to the script and a bit of comedy which made it very enjoyable. We were glad we could see Grace in this role.

Sunday after church, Katie's sister's family joined us for a leftover turkey dinner. Thankfully Ryan barbecued some chicken tenders to supplement the meal as by that time the leftover turkey was pretty dry.  Later that evening, we watched, the family get out all their Christmas ornaments and put them on the tree. A family tradition for them has been for each of the children to get a new Christmas ornament that signifies something important to them for the year. That night each of the children told us about their ornament before they put them on the tree.

The finished tree

We came home on Monday to face a ward Christmas party which we were in charge of. Luckily, we had a wonderful committee who really helped us. As a committee, we decided on a breakfast with the theme 'Christmas Morning Magic.' It was to take place on Saturday, the second of December, thus the week we got back we had a lot to do to pull it off. One of the stresses was finding a Santa. After several people turned us down, we pleaded with Casey to be our Santa. Gratefully he agreed. Andrea and Casey were flying in for Charlotte's production of Hattie's Echo so he would be here for our breakfast. We borrowed a Santa suit for him which fit him perfectly. We were so grateful for his willingness to do this as it had been a big worry for us.

Paul trying on the beard and wig.

We got a kick out of Casey trying on the
Santa suit. The beard and wig were very itchy.
He was such a good sport.

Other happenings of the month included celebrating Lincoln's 2 year old birthday. He loves the movie 'Cars' so that's what his cake was all about - Lightning McQueen, of course. He loved it as well as his presents which were all 'Cars' related. Now he will have some new boy toys to play with when he come to our home. 

We attended a funeral for my uncle Elliot at the first of the month. He was 100 years old when he passed away. It was a beautiful tribute him as all of his 12 children took part in the funeral. We were able to meet up with some of our cousins which we don't see very often. The Fullers and the Bulkeleys came, too.

With our cousin Marilee

An exciting thing that happened was going to the temple with Kim and Eric Howe when he received his endowments. It was such a beautiful thing to see him so thrilled at finally being in the temple. His comment was, 'You mean I can come back as often as I want?' We all went to dinner afterwards to celebrate.

Speaking of temples, one Friday, this month we attended the Orem temple open house. After working our shift at the Provo temple we decided to take our chances of getting into the Orem temple open house. We couldn't figure out how to make an appointment. At the time we went, we could walk right in. It was a self guided tour which allowed us to spend time where we wanted. The temple is magnificent, especially the Celestial room. We sat for a while in there just to take it all in and feel of the spirit of the temple. We were so glad we could see it before it is dedicated.

Then there was BYU sports  -  We attended the last home football game of the season. It was on a cold Saturday morning and hard to get excited to sit through another game after the dismal performance displayed at the last game at which we left at half time. Yes, we lost again. A pretty sad season but one to be expected with it being our first year in the Big 12 conference. 

Half time at the game played on Veteran's day

 Even some fireworks to complete the half time show

At the last game

On a positive note.....Freddy's Steak Burger restaurant is now opened in Provo. We love Freddy's burgers and have waited a long time for one to come to Utah County. We often would go to the Freddy's when we were in Salt Lake as there are several there and now we finally have one a bit closer. 

And now for some fun memes......

And then there's the ones that give us pause to think:

Then there was this entry in my calendar that I found just today.......

So sweet