The day after Christmas, we headed up to Saguaro National Park. Blake was in full photographer mode and we have him to thank for these great pictures.
Annie was sporting some candy cane ribbon braids courtesy of Breezy
"Look over there!"
"Don't look at him, look at me!"
"No, look at that cactus!"
To further delight us, Blake got creative with our ice cream maker. His concoction included strawberries and blueberries... and carrots and ginger. It was actually good, but then he topped it with a spicy chili sauce. It was... interesting.
The gals went to see the Nutcracker put on by a local dance studio! Annie kept asking, "why didn't you sign me up to be in this?!?"
Breezy did an awesome Christmas Gem craft with the kiddos! This was before we found them a more fitting display place. Isaac made one that was just green scribbles with gems glued on top. Annie took one look at it and said "maybe he should keep that one up in his room instead of down here with ours."
Breezy's winter wall decor was a group effort. Elliot is always glad to lend a hand in producing paper snowflakes.
We convinced the Johnsons to have Christmas in Arizona this year! It worked out great because Claudia and her kids were in Spain, meaning that Johnsons could crash at Stephen's house for extra room. The tragedy was that Mimi got a terrifying staph infection on her face a few days before she was supposed to fly out here. She ended up being hospitalized after being slow to respond to antibiotics. The infection was growing and getting close to her eyes in a way that could result in blindness or death. Fortunately the heavy duty antibiotics kicked in and she made a full recovery impressively quickly. This was extra sad because she had to cancel her trip last minute the last time we tried to have Christmas in Arizona back in 2020 because we caught Covid. One day it will happen, and this year we had the New Year's cruise to look forward to!
We ended up having Blake, Clio, Karissa, and Aunt Trisha fly into town. Blake had been around for a week already, but the others rolled in the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, so we got to start the day off with Church. I had the opportunity to give a talk. I based it on a line from a Christmas song that I love that says "Far away feels a little closer today."
The little kids in their Christmas church clothes
The bigger kids in their Christmas church clothes
Naturally, the little kids insisted on re-creating the classing Breezy-Blake pose
After church and lunch, we persuaded everyone to get out in the good weather and walk around the neighborhood harvesting some barrel cactus fruits.
De-seeding disaster zone! I meant to dry the seeds to store them, but forgot about it until they went bad. I candied the thinly sliced cactus fruit. I thought it was meh but Blake couldn't stop eating them so I guess that counts as a success!
This year's nativity was presented via shadow puppet theatre. Aaron read from the scriptures while Elliot acted it out with his carefully prepared puppets.
Everyone liked it so much that they asked for another story to act out after the nativity, which resulted in Blake crafting a version of A Christmas Carol with thick Jamaican accents.
Blake with meats. This guy is a true delight to have around.
Fondue feast!
On Christmas morning, the kids did an impressive job of waiting until 9 am for the adults to wake up and assemble from the other house. They diligently sorted the presents into piles for each person that completely covered the living room- I had to clear a bit of a pathway to the couches. It was good that we were at least able to have Mimi (freshly discharged from the hospital) and Grumpa participate in most of our activities over video call.
Christmas morning pullaparts!
Taking some new board games out for a spin
Beef wellington zone
Aunt Trisha make the most delicious stuffed mushrooms I have ever tasted out of ingredients we already had. Christmas was truly full of culinary delights this year.
And for the the true fans, here's a 3 minute snapshot of our Christmas morning. Shoutout to Mimi and Grumpa on video call and to Blake for excellent camera work.
