These are a few of my favorite things.....

Well, Christmas has come and gone again. It's so hard to believe another year is up, and a new one is on the way! But Christmas is always one of my favorite things to happen every year. It just seems like at Christmas time anything can happen. So it only makes sense that some of my best memories involve Christmas.

     I thought it would be fun to show a few of my favorite things that turn up around this time of year - keep in mind that this in only a small list of favorites, since a full list might be to uninteresting to most of you! :)

     This is a new favorite: Papa Murphy's new "Bacon, Bacon, Bacon" pizza! Need I say more? Probably not, but I will anyway. This delicious new heart attack in a slice features: Canadian bacon, peppered bacon, and just the good ol' regular bacon. I LOVED it!!

     Next we have the treat table (part of it). Included in this favorite is the fact that we get together with my mom's side of the family every Christmas Eve at Grandma's house and eat, and laugh, and open presents from each other. Usually the girls from our family, and sometimes Aunt Joni, get together before hand and make tons of candy and cookies. So there's always plenty of that around for the party. 

      I love seeing David get "beat up" by our cousin, Jeff. David has been a favorite target of Jeff's ever since David was little. Unfortunately for Jeff, David's not so little anymore, so this could be one of the last pictures of David looking so helpless. (But probably not)! :)

    Something else I love are Nativities! I might not be as much of a die hard as Mom, who collects Nativities and has almost too many to set out every year, but this is one of my favorite sets that she has. It's really easy sometimes to forget that Christmas isn't actually about presents, and worldly things. But having these Nativities around is a good reminder of the real and best reason we have Christmas.

 Grandma Jack comes over every Christmas morning and we have one of my favorite breakfasts (homemade cinnamon rolls, usually accompanied by hashbrowns, eggs, and bacon). Normally we get up pretty early to open presents, but Malia took the early shift at work so we had to wait until almost 11:00!! Don't worry though, we did make it. :)

 Christmas wouldn't be the same if we didn't spend it in Jerome. We haven't always made it exactly on Christmas day every year, but we do our best. This year we went in the afternoon and got there in time for the family present exchange.
         Normally all the cousins draw each other's names and get presents that way; but this year Grandma decided to have the entire family do that. I liked it! It was fun to see what the little, tiny cousins picked out for uncles, or older cousins (and vice versa). My cousin-in-law got my name and I scored with a bunch of Reeses! Grandma's basement was filled to the seams with food, family, and noise, but that's the way we like it.

   Grandma and Grandpa brought all of us some really cool presents back from Israel. We got a bag, and some of the Aunts and married cousins got scarves. The little kids got flutes (which I think everyone had mixed emotions about whether that was the best gift or not). But the thing that was super impressive was  Grandma being the excellent shopper that she is, get 53 pairs of hand made, camel leather sandals made for every single person in the family. I heard it was quite a riot with her getting the right sizes and placing that order to the shoe maker, but it all worked out. 

The flutes and sandals.

Another fun surprise for all of us was my uncle telling everyone that my aunt is having another baby! They have 5 kids (counting twins), so it's going to be super fun to see what this baby is like. Now we have two babies on the way in the family!

  So another good Christmas has wrapped up and now we're on the way to a new year where anything is possible!