With many restrictions from the Pandemic, we experienced a different type of Christmas season than in the past. However, we were still able to feel the true meaning of Christmas, even with different circumstances. We were able to adapt our Family Christmas party, individualize gift exchanges with our children and grandchildren and enjoy new and old Christmas traditions. We certainly didn't let a pandemic interrupt our joy of the Christmas season.
Family Christmas Service Project
We always try to find a way for our family to serve others, especially during this time of the year. This year we chose to sponsor some Christmas Angels through the Salvation Army. We asked our adult children if we could eliminate the Christmas Gift Exchange for adults this year and replace it with donations to the Christmas Angel program. The response was positive and generous. All together we accumulated enough money to provide for 7 different children. We asked several of our families to pick one of the children and do the shopping for that child. This help them feel a stronger connection to that specific child. As the presents started arriving at our home, it got a little complex. We used our guest room as the staging area for these gifts. Then, Beckie and her kids came with the gifts that they had picked out and helped us to label and organize all of the gifts. We then took them to the Salvation Army who delivered them to the children. We really enjoyed this experience!
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| Seven different angels identified with ages, wants and needs |
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| Presents in piles by each child as they arrived from the different families |
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| Labeling and organizing the gifts with the help of Beckie and her kids |
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| We finished up with 7 sacks of gifts, one for each child |
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| We hauled the sacks for each child as if we were Santa Claus |
Family Christmas Party
With restrictions on casual gatherings, we had to improvise our family Christmas Party to be on-line with Zoom. We were still able to have participation from different children and grandchildren. We then sang Christmas songs together and had all of the grandchildren exchange gifts with each other. This proved to be the most difficult task to pull off, as the gifts needed to be shipped or delivered to the all of the children before the party. Some of this did not get accomplished until the day before, but we made it. We look forward to an in person this coming year. It will be much easier.
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| Ellie played a piano solo for us |
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| McKenzie performed a guitar solo and sang |
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| Sam shared some Christmas memories from his mission |
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| Melanie and her family shared a Christmas poem, with all of the children participating |
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| All had fun in a different way, but most of our family members did participate. This slide shows participants from 14 different Zoom connections. |
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| Debbie prepared Christmas Carols with images and words for us to sing together |
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We participated in the family Christmas party from our living room, in front of our Christmas Tree
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Individual Family Visits
Because we could not all get together, we made individual visits to all of those that would not be coming to our home on Christmas. We still had a few single sons come on Christmas Eve. Overall, the visits went very well and our experience with each family was more individual and less rushed. This worked well with limited numbers. For Camila, the visits needed to be outdoors at her care center and it was pretty cold. But we all persevered and hopefully have special memories. A few photos follow:
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Christmas gifts were arriving from our on-line shopping continuously throughout the holidays. This was a common sight as we tried to keep up.
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The principal gift to each of our children and their families was a 72 hour supply of food. We hope that they will all be ready for whatever comes in the future.
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| Enjoying Christmas with Dan and his family in his home |
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| The same with Gina and her family in Provo |
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| The day that we went to Cache Valley to visit Jared and Kari and their families was the day of the appearance of the Bethlehem Star. This photo was taken outside Jared's home in Hyrum, Utah. |
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| Jared's kids enjoying their presents |
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| Gifts from Jared and his family to Oma and Opa |
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| Katelyn will remember her high school graduation during this unique year |
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| Caide with his gift as we had a very good visit with Caren and her niece and nephews |
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| Asher and Aria opening their presents |
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| Tiancom opening his present |
Those who lived closer came over on Christmas. We spaced their visits out over the day:
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| Jamie and her kids enjoying our game of the year which came from China |
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| Kaleb and his family at our home |
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| Aria and Rick with Pollyanna's family also at our home |
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Even Jessica with little Tommy came to our home
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We even enjoyed a visit from our great grandchild, Marcie
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New Christmas Traditions:
With most concerts cancelled this year, we enjoyed music and performances differently. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints shared nightly concerts from performers from around the world. This became part of our dinner hour. It taught us about the tremendous talent from performers all over the world. As a new approach to Christmas concerts, it introduced a special international flavor.
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| This became our normal dinner entertainment |
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| Performers from France |
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| Including family singing groups |
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Including missionaries and individuals harmonizing together
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| One of many of the nightly programs of musical numbers shared from around the world. |
Even our ward Christmas party was on-line. Debbie and I provided the words and images for a sing a long. The following photo is of our bishop and his wife as they gave a Christmas message to all of us.
We always loved going to the Forgotten Carols. This year a new version was presented to limited audiences at the theater. We were able to buy the DVD and enjoy it at home with my mother. We have enjoyed attending together over the years. We loved the new story that came along with this DVD.
As we continued with our sacrament service at home, we had the special privilege to share the space of our nativity set with our weekly sacrament.
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One of the Light the World ideas this year was to decorate the door of someone. Debbie chose to decorate my mother's door leading to the garage.
Even Christmas Carolers came from a distance. This photo is of my brother David and his family who came to sing to my mother.
We still had a few of our grandchildren participating in Christmas cookie decorating. They would not let this tradition be missed:
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| Jamie and her kids |
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Beckie's kids
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New Cars for Us and a few sons:
A little before Christmas our son Abraham needed new transportation to be able to maintain his employment. We felt it was time to sell him my mother's car which is older but very reliable. Therefore we sold the car to Abraham on terms that worked well for him. That left us down to just one car, so we decided it was time to get a new car for us. We purchased our first new car in our married life and paid cash for it, using most of our emergency fund. We finalized the deal on Christmas Eve and brought the new car home before the new year. Later, Moroni had a need for a different car and we helped him get into a much better solution, with a lot of help from God. All of this happened within just over a month.
Home Owners Association (HOA) activities and changes:
We held our annual meeting of the Home Owners Association for Cornerstone Condominiums by Zoom. We were able to get enough participants on-line to have a majority participation. Enough votes were received to have a valid election.
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| Annual Homeowner's meeting via Zoom |
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| The meeting was conducted by Sherm White, our outgoing president of the HOA |
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New officers were elected and new positions assigned. I ended up being the President of the HOA for the year of 2021.
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This began a whole new role. With a new Treasurer elected, I assumed an advisory role to the new Treasurer. We spent significant time, including Debbie's help, putting the financial records into order, including putting all homeowner accounts on-line to correspond to our financial records. This required a complete audit of our homeowner accounts. This required many adjustments and additional collections to get them all current. With significant effort by our new treasurer, Colleen Eyre, we can now say that the accounts are totally in order and balanced.
January Birthdays:
Our 2021 birthday celebrations started with Debbie's 68th birthday. She got her own special birthday celebration, including home cooked breakfast and a special movie at the theater. As we went to the theater, we found that we were the only ones in the theater. This gave her the special attention that she deserved.
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| Home cooked breakfast |
