Author: Abe Darais

Lily and I went to bed late as we were prepping for Christmas, but Lily was up early prepping for brunch. I have felt very tired lately and I stumbled out of bed at 7:45, managed a shower and made my way upstairs. My dad, Suzanne and Jere had already arrived (not wanting to hold of the present opening). First we all walked Basil around the block and then we got to the present opening.

After we all opened presents, Lily and I finished prepping brunch while everyone enjoyed watching “Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made” which my dad and Suzanne suggested. It was so funny!

At one point Mary disappeared for multiple hours to play with her art studio lego set that my dad and Suzanne gave her. My dad and Suzanne picked up Georgia and then we all had brunch together.

Brunch was amazing. We had avocado toast, grapefruit salad, popovers, chia pudding, and sausage.

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Ammon loved his iron-man costume!

After brunch, my dad and Suzanne took off and Jere stuck around. I also took Georgia home when she started to feel like she needed rest. When I got back, Jere helped me clean up and then we puzzled together which was so much fun. After puzzling, it was time for round two. Lily was already in the kitchen prepping dinner and so I helped.

For dinner, my mom and Jay joined the party. We had spoon beef from Harmons, turkey, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, salad with squash and pomegranate and cranberry sauce. It was delicious!

When everyone left, Lily and I did our final clean-up and we relaxed while watching “Knives Out: Glass Onion”. It was delightful!

We started the day by going to a candle light service at the Community of Christ church in Salt Lake. It was a beautiful service and it was really nice to socialize afterwards. Here is a video of the part of the service with candles:

Then we went shopping for groceries and went home to make a salmon dinner. Georgia wasn’t feeling great so she did not join us, but we had a really nice time eating as a family.

At night we put all the kids down. Ammon and Clarissa were very excited and had trouble falling asleep. Finally Clarissa fell asleep in the below position.

Ammon also fell asleep with his legs off of his bed. It was all quite amusing.

Once the kids were finally down, Lily and I got to work making preparations for tomorrow. We had fun setting the table, and got some pictures of our beloved table Christmas scene.

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Lily assembled the stockings.

And she finalized the presents.

I helped clean and I also snapped some photos of some of our Christmas decor.

Lily decided to make some peppermint marshmallow, mint-chip, chocolate cookies. When they were done she announced they were the best cookies she has ever made. They were delicious!

Lily truly is the Christmas Queen (sorry Mariah Carey!) and she has done so much to make this season magical for our whole family!

I got today off of work. I still worked some on a deal we are trying to close before the end of the year, but it did not disrupt my day too much.

This year we have really enjoyed the routine of reading a Christmas story, singing a Christmas song and letting the kids each open up one present during each day leading up to Christmas. I think Basil enjoyed it too!

In the late afternoon, Lily took Lydia out on a mother-daughter date. They went shopping for Christmas and also ate at Aubergene.

I spent the late afternoon and evening putting together Mary and Clarissa’s Christmas desks. It was a Christmas wish for each of them and they were so happy went they were finished. I love that they are next to each other so they can chat while they color!

I worked from home again today and we started the day with the kids opening another gift. Clarissa got a set of three Jane Goodall themed Barbie explorers. Basil has destroyed one of them already :(.

In the morning, Lily went out with her friends, Charity and Mikayla. They went to lunch and the Springville art museum. Lily came home raving about what an incredible time she had with her friends. Here are some pictures from the art museum:

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In the afternoon, Amy’s kids came over and played with our kids. They had a blast! Emerson made Lydia the sweetest Christmas card that complimented Lydia in many ways and affirmed their friendship. Emerson also had all the kids so entertained by telling them funning things while they played with clay. I caught some of it on video:

At the end of the playdate, we got to meet Merrill, which was such a delight! We’ve gotten to know Amy so well, and this was our first chance to get to know her husband. It was so fun getting to know him! He was warm and gracious and even watched our kids perform their instruments. What a treat to meet him!

After meeting Merrill, I finished up my work. While the kids were playing, Lydia got a video of Clarissa and Ammon singing and dancing to Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You”.

When I finished work, we had dinner and enjoyed the Christmas ambiance.

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At the end of the day, Lily and I went on a walk to drop off a gift to the Vandagriffs. Morgan was there and we had a great time chatting with him for a bit. We talked about our wonderful City Manager who was unjustly let go recently. He was such a great City Manager. Our main reference point was that when Lily reports dangerous sidewalk cracks, he has it fixed within 24 hours and calls Lily personally to let her know. He also personally called Lily to address her concerns when the house was shaking. He told us it was munition testing in Tooele. He did the research and got back to us.

On the way home, Lily and I talked about what our favorite part of Christmas-time has been this year. We both agreed that all the rich experiences with friends has been especially delightful this year.

At home we put the kids to bed and enjoyed watching “White Lotus”. It was sooo nice to just crash and watch TV together.

Today we had so much fun with various friends and Family. Georgia and Eli were both over during the day time and that was a lot of fun for everyone:

Later in the day we had Emerson and MichaelAnn over for dinner. The kids had a great time with Emerson while Lily and I chatted with MichaelAnn. We enjoyed her company so much! She’s going through a tough time, which we were sad to hear about, but we know she will get through it because she is so strong and wise and graceful. The kids made clay creations with Emerson and left the craft room in surprisingly good shape when they were done (yay!). When Amy came to pick up Emerson, it was fun to hear that her book she’s writing is almost complete. Most of the hard work is all complete! That has been a big elongated project for Amy, and we are so happy that she has made it to this point with all of her hard work and diligence paying off.

After our guests left, Lily and I cleaned and put the kids down. Then I puzzled while Lily wrapped a bunch of Christmas gifts. Afterwards we relaxed a moment together and enjoyed the beautiful Christmas scene in our living room:

Lydia and Mary have been doing a lot of cookie baking lately. Lily said that Lydia and Mary have been making so many great cookies, that she doesn’t feel the need to make any herself, even though she originally planned to. Today, Lydia made the heart cookies as well as a great chocolate chip cookie. Yesterday she made a checkerboard chocolate and sugar square cookie (also in the below picture) and Mary made a sugar cookie. All of them turned out amazingly delicious.

After work, I ran a bunch of errands. I fixed Georgia’s Alexa, picked up our mended couch pillows, and dropped off a prescription for Augmentin for Lydia (thank goodness Harmon’s had it, everyone else is sold out). It’s for Lydia’s infected finger. Amoxicillin didn’t take care of it unfortunately.

In the evening, Lily took Lydia to and from a party for Olivia Marshall, and she did a lot of music practice with the kids. I did some cleaning and then had a blast playing legos with Ammon. We were two ninja siblings that defeated a penguin, a dragon, snake fighters, a zhombie and a skeleton to retrieve treasure and ancient weapons. In the end, the villains turned nice and everyone became friends.

I had a rough night of sleep last night, so a cozy stay-in day was just my speed.

Lily (who also didn’t get much sleep), got up way before me and exercised, and then really enjoyed reading, napping and watching Lily & Dash from the daybed.

As soon as I woke up, the younger kids got very excited because they weren’t allowed to open their one present until I woke up. First Lily read a book about a giant Christmas tree in the woods that was inhabited by woodland creatures. They decorated the tree so Santa would find them, and find them he did! Then we all sang joy to the world and Ammon and Clarissa opened a present each. Clarissa was thrilled to open a Barbie. Lily and I have mixed feelings about Barbie, but Clarissa gets so excited when she sees them at friends’ houses and she has really been wanting one. Lily has been giving Clarissa good coaching around body image, and we could tell those chats have paid off when I commented to Clarissa that her Barbie was very beautiful, and she said, “but I’m beautifuller!”

Ammon got another lego set and I enjoyed repeating yesterday and building the set with him.

Then, I worked some at my computer, listened to church, ran Basil, and helped clean the kitchen. Mary and Lydia each baked cookies (I assume from their new desserts cookbook Lily gave them for Christmas). The cookies turned out fantastic, and they did good work cleaning up afterwards.

Then we all had dinner and did Karaoke afterwards. It was so fun! Here are some videos!

“Puppies are forever” by Sia:

This morning I slept in, and when I got up, Lily read Las Posadas to the family, and led us in singing a Christmas song. Afterward, she allowed the kids to open one Christmas gift each if they chose. Ammon opened Legos, Clarissa opened clay (which she played with all day), and Lydia and Mary opened a desert cookbook for them to share. I had a lot of fun helping Ammon build his Lego set of a horse trailer and SUV.

Then Lily and I worked out. Afterwards, we cleaned the house and I set up our new puzzle table (yay!). Ammon and Clarissa were very cute as they helped me set up the table.

We also noticed that Basil seems to have enjoyed his toy chicken….

In the evening, Lily picked up Indian food and we had the Sonntags over for dinner. They are such a sweet family and they radiate such a calm gentle peace. We had a great time talking about Katherine’s new book and job, a drawing that Bob gave to us related to his recent learnings about annual feast festivals, and life updates. It was such a good evening with them! Ammon loved playing with their kids Rainier, and Auden, and sent them home with a bag of gifts (his toys). It was a lovely evening!

Coincidentally, I have two photos about Bappa today.

This morning I made oatmeal for myself and put chopped apples, pecans, raisins and molasses in it. I thought of my dad, because when I was growing up, he often made us breakfast, and oatmeal like I described was a go to for him (he would either serve oatmeal with raisins, coconut flakes and molasses, or oatmeal with chopped apples and brown sugar if I remember right). I sent him the picture in the morning to reminisce. It turned out he started the day with oatmeal today too!

Then later in the day, my cousin Adam (who is going through old photos for a family Christmas display) sent me this picture of my dad out of the blue. Isn’t it great!

And speaking of adorable, I love this gift Mary wrapped for her friend. I think the note is hilarious!

In the evening, we went to see, “A Christmas Story” at the Scera. Our friends Eli Kahler, and Ed Eyestone were in it and they both did such a good job. We were touched by the nostalgia, beauty and humor of the story, and now we all want to watch the movie! Below are some scenes that Lily captured.

Today Lydia performed in her class play, “A Christmas Carol”. I think she excited to be done because rehearsals were boring for her. Good job Lydia!

I had an insane day at work and got home around 5:40 feeling completely depleted and wound-up. Chris was in-town and stopped by to visit and pick up his mail. It was so fun to see him. I grilled salmon and Lily made a salad and we had a great time chatting. Then we all puzzled together. I was so stressed at work, that I fully expected to not be much fun to be with. But Lily and I enjoyed Chris’ company so much that the laughter flowed for all of us. By the end of the evening, I could barely believe how much fun I was able to have given the stressed state I started the evening in. Chris’ big heart and dry sense of humor make him truly fun to be around. And we made great progress on the puzzle!