Counting down to Christmas

 To get in the spirit of Christmas we did our traditional 12 Days of Christmas scriptures and activities.  We skipped a few nights of our envelopes but for the most part it was a very successful countdown with lots of fun memories!

Our neighbor gifts consisted of a craft and a treat - the kids did the little candy cane cards and I did the chocolate peppermint pretzels, then we all helped out in delivering them.  It was a late night...

We played a Christmas game...

We made paper candy canes to decorate our table and drank hot chocolate...

We had friends over for a Monday night advent (singing hymns and reading scriptures about Christ and then eating lots and lots of dessert)...  The kids enjoyed playing the Don't Eat Rudolph game...

We went to Desert Ridge for their "snowfalls" and had the kids do their Christmas shopping for each other (a la Target dollar bins)...

We decorated a gingerbread house and the kids promptly ate it....

Claire busied herself eating a delicious treat from a neighbor while we worked on our gingerbread house...

We went to the Studio Movie Grill and watched Rise of the Guardians...

And we admired the Wizard of Oz themed gingerbread village at the Desert Ridge Marriot...

Other activities this month included class parties!  I went to Emma's and Ben got to go to Becca's.  I'm so glad Ben took a few days off of work the week before Christmas...

Adam and Grandma Dangerfield had a birthday!  We had delicious red and green cake made my Aunt Lacy...

More Advents and family time!...

And we shopped till we dropped!  Shopping for a family of 6 at Christmas time is labor intensive - but it was fun!  Here are a couple of my shopping buddies at the Tanger Outlets taking a break with their soft pretzel bites.  :)