December, Remembered - Upon a Midnight Clear

Like so many wise folks before us, the second Sunday in December found us gathering up our treasures (the kids) and taking them on a journey to see the new born Christ child. We bid farewell to Grandpa and Grandma in the morning, rested for the afternoon, and by the evening were ready to settle back into the seasonal celebrations. The night was clear and beautiful, and due to the rainy weather the two previous days, everyone else had decided to wait and come this evening as well to pay their respects (and to get some hot chocolate). We found there was nary a room at the inn, or, in our case, a parking spot in the church lot. After securing alternate accommodations for our van on the neighborhood street around the corner, we ventured up the sidewalk walking with the throng to:

Every year we come to one of the church buildings

in our stake to see the numerous displays

of creches from around the world, and to enjoy the

living nativity presented on the back lawn.

This year I had actually been a volunteer who had come

earlier in the week to help unpack and set up the

creche displays, I helped set up most of Africa in

one afternoon. There were so many beautiful creches made

from so many diverse materials following so

many different traditions.

The lighting inside the building, (along with my meager

photography skills/equipment) don't make for great

photos in this setting, still there are so many worthy subjects.

Harriet with a couple of swell shell creches

Henry with a Tibetan hand sewn scene

Jed admiring the "fear not" sign around

the neck of the heralding snowman angel

"Whimsical Peruvian Nativity

handmade in Peru by the disadvantaged.

Notice the very unusual animals for a

nativity scene"

Looks like there's a penguin and a butterfly

in there with the traditional oxen and donkey,

as well as the hen and rooster from a vintage

Fisher Price farm set.

Lastly, we venture outside for the live nativity show

and the complimentary hot chocolate.

We also get to meet and pet a featured player

in the production, a sweet, soft burro

with the unlikely name of Madison.

Obviously sunday best is not a requisite.

We enjoyed Follow the Star again for another year,

and found it a fitting end to our fun and family filled

festive weekend. I'm sure we'll be back again next year!

December, Remembered or The Reason for the Season

As covered in this previous post, this most busy month of

December also included Henry's baptism!

At first glance having to plan and pull off a baptism by myself (which is what I had to do after the stake had so many scheduling changes that I finally "went rogue" and planned my own, right down to scheduling the speakers and musical numbers and making and printing the program) on the second to last Saturday before Christmas seemed a bit overwhelming. Then I realized that this whole day would actually be quite a welcome respite from the whole Christmas hustle and bustle, a day that I could put all of that aside and just focus on being surrounded by family and celebrating Henry's decision to follow our Savior's example and be baptized.

One of the better things to come from this is that my parents flew down for a long weekend visit and to attend the baptism.

it was so special having them here, especially

Grandpa Bob who hasn't been to visit us since

the twin's baptism three years ago.

Our family loves having grandparents around

for a variety of reasons.

Here are just a few....

Grandma bought us a Santa cake from the bakery!

(Grandpa bought us all dinner at Souplantation!)

Grandma did all of the laundry and ironing!

(She even looked for things to iron!)

Grandpa sat with Henry and listened to

him read "Ready, Freddy!" books to no end

(Grandpa also spent the better part of Friday

afternoon after they flew in dismantling the

toilet and fixing a bad pipe in it - no easy task!)

The twins voluntarily pulled out their

instruments from music this year and

performed an impromptu concert!

(or at least attempted Jingle Bells)

Jed was a willing music stand participant

Harriet with her "flutation device" (her joke)

and of course they were among the

honored guests at Henry's baptism

on a very rainy Saturday afternoon.

(we did have other family at the baptism

but they arrived too late for the before-hand photo session.

Here's a picture....)

Our two grandpas talking after the baptism,

Sue and Grandma in the background.

Thanks to everyone who came from near and

far to help us celebrate this happy day!

December, Remembered, or The Year Almost Without a Santa Claus

For a little over a year I have had the calling in our ward as Primary Presidency 2nd Counselor. Next to teaching Primary this has been my favorite calling. I love being in the Primary, all my kids are in the primary, and many of my friends serve in the primary as well. We don't have a very big Primary, about 35 kids total, which is nice and manageable in a way. One of my responsibilities is planning activities (other than Sunday) for the Primary, which can include just the kids or their whole family, and usually involve some sort of missionary or service opportunity. Having a breakfast in early December that the everyone plus their friends and family is invited to, and featuring a photo op with Santa Claus is a tradition in our ward, and this is the second year that I have been completely in charge of pulling the whole thing off.

And although I inherited the calling from a very organized woman who left instructions for many of the tasks and items necessary for some of the activities,

many details have been left completely up to me.

Like the invitation for instance:

Not too fancy, but nice and simple and easy to decipher, with all the necessary information readily available.

And shaped like a bookmark, because I like bookmarks.

Another important detail in the planning of this activity is securing Santa to come and be available to be sat upon for nearly an hour and a half. Thanks to my predecessor and her "list" I've had several available options to pursue. Last year we had both Santa and Mrs. Claus show up. They were fine, except I felt that they both kind of ran out of steam half way through the activity, and accommodating both in the photos was a bit trying.

So this year I had gone with the other option on the list, a nice man from Irvine who was friends with one of our former bishops, and works professionally as Santa during the season at South Coast Plaza. I've never met him, but over the course of November I had worked on securing him to come and be our Santa for the morning of the first Saturday in December. On the night of the first Friday in December I spoke with him again, just long enough for him to tell me that he was down sick with the flu and wouldn't be available to show up in less than 14 hours to be our Santa at Breakfast with Santa.

Well, after some choice words aimed at the the hung up phone I then called my friend the Primary President and we sprung into action. She secured a Santa suit from a neighboring ward, while I thought about who we could call to fill it. There is one youth in our ward, a recent high school graduate, who was Pete's first suggestion, and the instant perfect choice. Sure, he's a bit on the young side, but that actually made him all the more appealing.

I called his home, and naturally enough on a Friday night he was out on a date. His mom laughed and said it was funny, that night at dinner they had just been talking about the activity in the morning, and he had said "I wouldn't mind being Santa some time!" Total fate. She was sure that he would be more than happy to help out, she accepted on his behalf, and told me that she would text him on his date to prepare him. We both got a laugh out of the thought of getting just such a text during a date.

The next morning he was there with his best attitude and jolly disposition, and it couldn't of gone better. Of course some of the kids knew who it was, he is so friendly with them, but most of them seemed just as delighted as ever to have the chance to sit on Santa's lap for this very important confab.

The beard and mustache were a bit of a glitch, they kept sliding around, and his eyebrows were a bit dark, but it was a very small, insignificant price to pay for one of the best Santas ever. Every gleam in his eye was completely genuine.

Here's a look at some photos from that morning. Because I was in charge and running around the whole time taking pictures wasn't first and foremost on my agenda.

But here's a few:

These are the photos as they appeared on the bulletin board

I put up and on the files I emailed out to everyone.

I added the cheesy soft filter boarder,

I feel it really added to the whole

nostalgic photo with Santa experience.

Of course having a very familiar Santa led to

some people wanting to sit on his lap and

have a photo who normally would have stayed away.

Our previous Bishop was more than happy

to hop on "Santa's" lap for a laugh.

And our Santa had his own group of fans

who were well beyond Primary age

who came by to cheer him on and take a photo or two

Oh yeah, there was also the breakfast.

Jed helped to cook up some delish pancakes.

Santa with the Lake Forest Ward Primary Presidency

and here's our family photo with Santa

that became our family Christmas Card 2009

Thanks again Jake!

You were our very own Christmas Miracle.

December, Remembered

(how do you like that slant rhyme blog title? so bloggy!)

Yet, that's what we have here, a couple of posts all about December. It's like, so last decade I know, but I'm nothing if not thorough and a bit anally retentive when it comes to chronologic blogging. So over the next few posts I will recount our last month of 2009, hopefully finishing up before the end of January 2010!

So here now is the first installment of Richardson Family Raconteur's

December, Remembered.

Our December started with a Big Adventure for the twins. They had the opportunity to participate in the Sixth Grade Science Sleep Away Camp for four days. The camp is located about 2 hours away from Orange County in the mountains near Big Bear, not far from Jenks Lake where we went camping two summers ago. They left on Tuesday morning Dec. 1st from the school for the bus ride there and returned home not long after lunchtime on Friday the 4th. They were excited and a bit apprehensive about being homesick, but we knew it would be a great opportunity for them in a lot of ways. The school had established a letter delivery service, we wrote as many letters before they left as we wanted, then they were taken with the kids and delivered each day as specified. Of course we wrote one for each twin each day and they later said they really enjoyed them. The weather was cold and we had borrowed some cold-weather gear as most of ours is kept in Utah where we usually only need it. I regret that I didn't do better by them in this area, I sent them with mittens when they really needed some good warm gloves. But overall they came home tired and excited with a lot of stories and experiences to relate, and, in the case of Harriet, one teeny tiny crush on one of the counselors (no names or photos included of that, even though I have both, Harriet's already going to kill me for including this...)

And lastly we need to give a big Thank You! to their grandparents for funding this wonderful opportunity!

Jack and Harriet on the morning they leave for camp,

mostly excited, a bit apprehensive

(don't look too closely at Jack's red-rimmed eyes)

girls ready to hit the road

Harriet with two of her best friends,

incidentally also the three girls in the class who wear glasses.

They call themselves "the Bee Gees" for "the blind girls"

they took A LOT of photos of themselves and

faces like these on the bus ride up

arriving at Camp Nawakwa near Big Bear

from 70 + degrees down to around 40 or so.

snowy ground

Harriet with the campy mountain scenery

shooting at hay during archery

tired and happy on the final bus ride home

Thats about it for photos from Harriet,

who has her own camera.

I lent Jack my old Sony,

the first digital camera we ever owned,

for the trip to camp.

I told him I'd pay him a

nickel for every photo that he took.

I should have specified

I'd pay him for every decent photo that he took.

Here's just a small sampling of what came back from him.

button on the bus

tic tacs his friend gave him on the bus

many, many blurry photos of the scenery passing by

his cabin among the trees at the camp

photo from the dining hall

utensils, plate, bowl and cup from dining hall

photo of cabin interior from Jack's top bunk

luggage ready to go on the last morning

photo with some of his class (Jack far right)

the rest of these photos I stole

off the twins' friend's facebook pages...

Jack and friend in their waterproof

"green gear" provided by the camp

Jack, left, rappelling wall

goofing off on a hike

can you do this?

(okay, I lied, here's one photo....)

Well, there it is, the first four days of December covered.

Coming up next time, first Saturday of the month,

featuring Breakfast with Santa. See you then!