The First Christmas

Despite being very poor, Will and I had a grand old time celebrating our first Christmas together as newlyweds. It was fun establishing some of our own family traditions. In an effort to focus on Christ throughout the month of December, we decided to read the words of latter-day prophets. Talks by President Monson, Hinckley, and Benson were pretty easy to come by, but when we reached Harold B. Lee, it got a little bit harder to find accesible writings from the earlier prophets. Nevertheless, it was fun to read their testimonies of our Savior and learn a little bit more about each prophet.
As part of our nightly ritual, we lit two candles and then expressed why we were grateful for the Savior that day. Lighting the candles and bearing our testimonies about the Savior was a really neat experience that I hope to share with our children. I enjoyed the chance to ponder about the Lord, Jesus Christ, and the many roles He plays in our lives.

As far as the as the actual celebrating goes, we headed up to So Jo to spend Christmas Eve with our families. It was kind of helter skelter trying to get my family on the same schedule, but we made do. Even though Justin and Mya were spending the holidays in Wyoming, we were able to see them right before Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with the Boren's and Christmas with the Lehmitz's.

We gave the gift of practicality to my dad--he loves clean cars, so he was thrilled about the detailing tools we gave him.

Sarah drew us a beautiful picture of the Manti temple, and being the art teacher that I am, I gave her a drawing book to help fine tune those skills.
We really enjoyed being with Dad, Jenifer, Jess, Megan, and Sarah on Christmas Eve. We had a delicious meal and played a rousing game of dominos. We only wish that Blake, Jasmine, Ana, Justin, Mya, and Kell could have been there with us.

The Lehmitz celebration was equally entertaining. Christmas morning was filled with presents, presents, sweet rolls, and more presents. It took us three hours to open them all! Sterling and Steven looked dashing in their new pajamas. I think I'll have to make a pair for Will next Christmas so he doesn't feel left out.
Santa was good to us as well. We finally got a dvd player so we can watch movies on the tv instead of Will's laptop.

And Will got a drill so he can feel like a real man.
My coveted present was Adobe Creative Suite 4--Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Acrobat. Just when all hope dissipated, I opened up the last present. Will definitely spoiled me. Now I just have to re-teach myself how to use them. I'm really excited to create our wedding album!

Overall, Christmas was fantastic. Blizzard conditions persisted Christmas day, and we risked our lives driving to Grandma Sally's to see some more family. Poor Will was white-knuckling it the whole way home. Our car was splattered with ice fragments and we were crawling at 35 miles an hour on the freeway. We were snowed in at the Lehmitz's and got to spend an extra day hanging out with them. Will's extended family spends a lot of time together over the holidays so their house was filled with cousins and aunts and uncles. I enjoyed getting to know them better and spending time with the family.