Christmas came so soon after Thanksgiving this year, and looking ahead to Christmas at the first part of December, it didn't seem as if it would be as busy as Christmases past. I had my cards made, ordered and ready to be mailed before Thanksgiving, and that's a first!
We both got a bad coughing bug the first week of December, which caused us to cancel a trip with my siblings and spouses to Myrtle Beach. I was sad to miss the chance to be with them, because we always laugh, share and eat a lot. We got our decorations up early.
We enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas Message program, especially hearing Stacy's dear friend, 1st counselor in the Young Women's presidency, Tammy Runia, speak, and we always love hearing Christmas music from the Choir on Temple Square.
Our new friends, the Swifts, invited us to go with them to a Christmas concert in the St. George Tabernacle. We enjoyed the evening with them and also, a new couple who just moved in to our ward, the Pettits. A wonderful chamber choir and orchestra performed, along with a youth choir, and it was beautiful music. The highlight of the evening for me was when Stephanie Fackrell, who was married to our now deceased Balladier drummer, Rob, came up to us and Roger, Stephanie and I were so thrilled to see each other! We excitedly chatted and caught up. She is such an upbeat doll, much adored by all of the Balladier family. She has remarried and we met her new husband, who seems like a wonderful man.
We weren't able to hear my sister, Kay's, Keynotes Concert in the Tabernacle on December 11, because we were invited to go to our last NAI Christmas party, which was the same night, and they honored Roger at the dinner, who retired earlier this year. So instead, we heard them in one care center, then followed them to another. They sang mostly different songs from their repertoire in each one, so we heard most of their music for the Tabernacle program. They sounded wonderful, as always. This year, Kay was the director of their Christmas program, and she started choosing their music last June. All of their songs are always memorized and every year they learn almost all new ones. Their blend is outstanding and I am always impressed with the variety and quality of their music. It isn't quite Christmastime until we hear the Keynotes!
Our Come Follow Me group (5 couples), met in Nancy and Loran Van Noy's beautiful new home for a Christmas dinner and party. I made the appetizer, individual puff pastries filled with cream cheese, pepper jelly and chopped pecans.
We so enjoy meeting with these wonderful people every week to study about Christ together and we have a wonderful camaraderie. Nancy, down on the end, made a delicious mushroom and beef lasagna and we had a great salad, garlic bread and yummy German chocolate cake for dessert.
The NAI Christmas party at the Brio Clubhouse was so fun, as always, with a delicious buffet, fun games, and, this year, they gave everyone a wonderful gift.
Next party was our Ward Christmas Party (our branch was re-named a senior ward). We always have a delicious roast beef dinner and entertainment from both our ward and the community and it was a fun evening. Our stake has a committee that decorates and each of the 9 wards in our stake, on different nights throughout December, use and enjoy them.
Loran and Nancy
Steve and Lorraine Swift
We celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary by driving to Logan for the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra Christmas program, led by Craig Jessop, our dear Balladier friend. Mat and Savanna Shaw, father and daughter of social media fame, were the guest artists. Dane Graham gave us marvelous seats in the middle on the 5th row of a sold-out, closing night concert.
We stopped at Maddox in Brigham City on the way to Logan for a delicious anniversary dinner and they comped us each dessert - I had their out-of-this-world delicious chocolate pie and Roger had our other favorite, coconut cream pie.
It seems to me that the true source of the finest choirs is a marvelous director and the talent he/she can attract. Craig led the then Mormon Tabernacle Choir for 10 years and now leads a 150-voice choir in Logan. He draws talented singers and instrument players from areas all around, and the level of excellence is exactly as the Tab Choir, just with fewer voices. What a marvelous program, and what a beautiful way to celebrate our anniversary!
Mat and Savana are each terrific soloists in their own right, and, oh, do they blend beautifully together!
These three doctors of music at USU played an intricate and humorous rendition of "Sleigh Ride"!
We discovered that we were sitting next to Doug and Elaine Alder's son. Doug had been our history professor and the bishop who interviewed us for our temple recommends when we were married in the Salt Lake Temple exactly 57 years ago before that night. Quite timely, don't you think? Doug went on to be President of then Dixie College in St. George, among many other academic things, and our paths crossed again when he spoke at Leadership Dixie that Roger attended soon after we moved to St. George and Roger talked to him after the meeting. In the conversation, Roger mentioned that I wanted to get involved in community work. He and Elaine called me that evening, each with a phone extension to their ear, and the next morning my name was on many organization's desks: the Southwest Symphony and Chorale to sing, the St. George Art Museum to be a docent, the St. George Musical Theater to be a volunteer, the Sear's Invitational Art Show to be on the selection committee and Care and Share, to volunteer helping feed the needy.
The next morning, our beautiful returned missionary-granddaughter, Abby, spoke in Sacrament meeting about her mission in Oklahoma and Texas. Such a spiritual, kind, loving and fun little doll she is! She absolutely loved her mission teaching of Christ, had many converts and loved the people dearly! She really didn't want to leave it, but she said her strongest draw to come back home was she would get to be with Blake! I love that she and all the missionaries can skype or Face Time their families every week.
Missy flew in from Boise and her daughter, Ellie, drove from Utah Tech in St. George, and they drove on home to Boise for Christmas. We were tickled that Susie, Roger's sister, came from West Haven (Craig was sick) and Chyrrl, Roger's sister who supports and comes to everything, was recovering from surgery.
Three Stratford generations
They're dressed in Merry Christmas red. So fun to see Josh and Jaylene and kids, on break from Josh's MBA program at Cornell.
We drove home Sunday afternoon so we could be home Monday for my dear and beloved friend Beverly's funeral. She was my accompanist for most of the 16 years I led the branch choir. She was a joy to work with and so very talented, yet so very humble.
Roger and I made 4 big batches of granola to give to friends and neighbors.
We received this sweet old-fashioned and delicious home-made gift from Barbara Shakespeare, a 90 something year-old darling dynamo lady who teaches Gospel Doctrine in our ward. What a doll she is! I told Roger to take a pic (he's got the better iPhone camera), it just looked so charming!
Christmas in Mesa with Ryan's Family
Ryan and Emily invited us to come to Mesa and spend Christmastime with their family. They were all home for Christmas this year, including the two married couples, Peter and Izzy in Dallas and Anna and Jack in NYC.
It's actually the first time we've spent Christmas in their home and we were excited to spend time with them and their kids. Ryan and Emily asked each of their kids what they would like to do and they made a very busy calendared schedule for each day of the holidays, and here are just a couple of the pages:
As you can see, there were power-packed plans, though never did a day go quite as planned! Grandma and Grandpa could join in or not as we wished.
The evening we arrived we had Stratford street tacos, then went to the Giving Machines in Gilbert.
Each morning, there was some form of major exercise, whether it was stretching and exercising with the tv, running, swimming or playing soccer (did I leave out anything?)!
On Christmas Eve, we had foods prepared from the various mission countries the family members had served in. Ryan (Chile) and Emily (Argentina) both had empanadas on their missions. Becca has it down how to form the edges. Here I am showing her the easiest way to chop an onion.
Aren't they beautiful!
We're hangin' out at their pool enjoying lunch salads from Salad and Go.
We enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner in their lovely dining room, all sparkling for Christmas.
Ryan grilled some t-bone steaks representing the plenteous meat in Argentina. Izzy made a beautiful tossed green salad with fresh pears, candied walnuts and pomegranates. Ben made chimichurri to eat with the empanadas and the steaks and he later made California chocolate shakes for everybody.
The whole family is ready for the feast!
Roger and I got a Christmas pose in their all whites living room.
The kids pose with a beautiful Arizona Christmas Eve sunset in front of their home.
After dinner was the annual Nativity and it is acted out as the Saint Luke scripture is read.
You're never too old for this; next, I guess their kids will play the roles.
Christmas jammies from Santa are always opened Christmas Eve.
The kids had drawn names of which sibling he/she got a Christmas gift for and they were opened on Christmas Eve. They also opened the flavored popcorn/money gifts from us. Then we each shared about one gift we received from our Savior and one gift we would like to give to him. I was surprised at the depth of feelings that were shared. It was wonderful!
The kids lined up from the youngest to the oldest on Christmas morning to go to the family room to see what Santa had brought them.
Emily made a beautiful book of their family's trip to France last summer for each one. They were all overjoyed!
Then it was time for Christmas breakfast!
For Christmas dinner, we joined all of the Gilberts, except Clark's family, at Paul and Susan's new home on the Phoenician Golf Course in Scottsdale. They are always so warm, gracious and inclusive to us and we had a lovely soup and salad supper.
After dinner, we went around the circle sharing updates in each of our lives.
Day after Christmas, we went to downtown Mesa to enjoy a concert by Emma Nissen, a native daughter of Mesa and a family favorite of theirs. She really is an amazing talent!
Anna, Jack and Emily came down with bad colds, so they wore masks, but didn't want to miss the concert.
After the concert, we took a quick drive around the beutiful lights at the Mesa Temple. We just made it around before they turned off!
Roger, Pete, Izzy and I then picked up our addiction shakes for each of the family. They are so good!
Next day, Roger and I slipped over to Gilbert to spend the afternoon with Stacy, Tom and family. Jake was home from working on his Masters in Norway and Maddy was home from BYU. Sydney, Jake and kids weren't able to be there. We loved hanging out with them, hearing about Jake's life in Norway and we wish we had taken some pics.
Last day there, the boys golfed at the Biltmore Golf Club and the girls stayed home and hung out by the pool, then we fixed grilled balsamic chicken, brown rice and steamed broccoli.
Sarah fixed Becca's hair for her date that night, and they both looked so pretty, Grandpa took both of their pics. They are such sweet and darling granddaughters!
We headed home on the Saturday after Christmas. We enjoyed such a wonderful time with Ryan's family and they made us feel that they were so happy to have us there to share in their traditions. Special memories were formed!
We spent New Year's Eve with our dear friends, Anne and Jay Taylor. We went to dinner at the Steak and Chop House and Roger and I each had a lobster tail - delicious! We went over to their home after dinner and played cards and I won! I used to say I didn't like to play games, but I think I'm changing my mind. With most of them, you can sit, and that is more and more appealing!
2024's Christmastime turned out to be lots more action than I thought! It was all really good stuff, but I'm looking forward to more naps in January!
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