We Wish You A...

Merry Christmas!

What a busy time of year, which means this will be a busy post.

First, we'll start with decorating the tree.

We decorated it earlier than I'd planned to, because we put up our outside decorations in mid-November. You've got to take advantage of warm weather when you've got it!

And, of course, once the outside stuff was out, Craig begged to set up everything inside,  too.

And who am I to argue?

It takes up space, but it also seems so festive!

I love the glow of the lights.


Also making life busy this time of year: Christmas concerts.  We had 2 concerts to attend the first being Caleb's.

He was dressed as a shepherd, sat down half the time, tried to fix the ears of the sheep in front of him, and came running off the stage to give Daddy a hug partway through.

Oh, little askew shepherd! Go back and sing!

We also had Craig and Calista's to attend.

With Caleb, which wasn't always easy, though was sometimes amusing.

Like when he loudly repeated what Kyler and I had been whispering, "Stop picking your nose, Craig!"

Craig, despite picking his nose a bit, did very well.

He wasn't the loudest singer of the bunch, but he clearly knew the words, so that's something.
Calista, of course, was in her element.

She sang, did the motions, and played recorder.

Which, while I did catch on video, I am not subjecting you to. No one really wants to hear an entire class of 8-year-olds try to play recorder in "unison."

My kiddos did so well at their concerts, though, even if only a parent would appreciate it.


On the Sunday before Christmas, I made my children dress nicely, sit still and took pictures of them, as I usually do.

Well, mostly sit still. I'm pretty sure Craig was vibrating.

But they sat well enough for me,

And I got some pretty decent pictures.

And I only yelled at them a little bit.


For Christmas itself, we headed down to Raymond. This meant we got to participate in the traditional Rasmussen Family Christmas Eve get-together and talent show.

Craig told us weeks beforehand that he wanted to dance, and even practiced - a little. And had a lot of fun.

Calista practiced a lot, and had a whole variation on Ode to Joy planned, but got nervous and just did the basic version. But still did awesome!

And they also had fun playing with the handbells that their cousins used, too.


Christmas Day itself was low key and wonderful.

Everyone loved all of their presents, and were able to play with them all for quite a while.

Also, we may now have a magician in the house.

So tricky!
Also on our Christmas to-do list was to go for a family walk.

It was chilly, but good. Which is what Christmas in Alberta invariably is.

Merry Christmas!