“wait, you didn’t hear about how we bought two trees this yr?”

Let me tell you the story because I have certainly told everyone else already.

You see we got really excited about Christmas so the weekend after Thanksgiving we went out and bought our tree. It was just like people told us it would be here. Beautiful but a little scraggly on the top. We decorated it and made it look so pretty. Daddy watered it but then mommy left town on a girls trip. For some reason the tree stopped drinking water. Mommy was so sad to come home and find it almost dead. It was 3 weeks before Christmas and the tree was dead. It wasn’t pretty and that was sad but the reason we had to throw it out was that our special ornaments started to fall off the tree. Crazy, huh? We have tile floors so they were breaking. Oh my!

So, mommy decided to go ahead and put up an artificial tree but daddy decided that he really liked the real tree and that it may be our only other Swiss tree (since we may get to go home for Christmas next year!!!). That next Sat mommy and daddy loaded us up and drove us up the mountain to find the tree farmer (no more hardware store trees for us). He had cut beautiful trees just the day before. We picked the best tree in the bunch and loaded it up!

We headed home with our tree and tried to set it up just right. The trunk looked a little funny because the farmer shaved off the outside of the trunk at the bottom. I don’t think he knew that that meant it couldn’t soak up any water. Oh my! So our pretty tree was fresh and green for about a week before it started getting dry! It hung on until Christmas but mommy kept telling people not to get too close because all of the needles were falling off.

Now I know you may be thinking that my mommy and daddy are a bit crazy. I sometimes think that. But I can tell you that our tree was really pretty and we enjoyed it so much! We wish all of you could have been here to enjoy it too.(oh and our friends bought a tree at the farm on the same day and their’s died too! so it  wasn’t daddy’s watering technique)

Currently both dead trees are in our atrium collecting snow until the especially assigned tree trash day!

We were missing family and friends on Christmas this year but we enjoyed a great family time followed by a nice meal with some new friends we have made here in Bern! Jackson woke up at a ghastly 4:54 AM and noticed that Santa had come. Seth convinced him that Santa might not have finished his last round and could potentially bring more. It was a Christmas miracle that Jackson fell back asleep until about 7 AM. Both boys had tons of fun opening gifts. It was our first yr to have both boys into the opening of gifts.

Disclaimer: I took Jackson  to the mall a couple of weeks ago and he picked out the Superman underwear for Seth. He was set on getting them. When Seth opened them he asked if he could borrow them. There was no joke involved in the gift from Jackson. Why wouldn’t daddy want Superman underwear?!

Our dinner party was nice a relaxed. We had a fancy table and used china because it was fun and really because when we got married I convinced Seth that we needed china. For appetizers we had antipasto, shrimp cocktail and a hot bacon blue cheese dip. For the main meal we had ham, corn casserole, my mom’s homemade rolls, a green salad with gargonzola, craisins, pecans and apples with a cider vinagrette and a rice dish that our friend brought. For dessert one of our friends brought a rum cake! Delicious food! Which brings me to the fact that Santa brought me just what I was wanting this yr! A Wii fit! After all of this yummy food the Wii fit is going to be in for it! I had no idea Seth was getting it so it was a fun surprise!

Seth’s parents arrive on Tues so we are switching gears to get the house back in shape!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

This yr I decided that it would be okay for Jackson to touch the nativity scene and “play” with it. The donkey kept his tail intact about 5 mins. He apparently “jumped” off the table or something like that. No worries. I said he could touch it and I feel like it is good for him to learn through is play. We can always use superglue. After the donkey lost his tail I decided to put the nativity on an Ikea tray and told Jackson he could play with it as long as everyone stayed on the tray. (this has been remotely successful, unless again people decide to jump off the tray, off the table, etc). Mary has lost her halo-ish thing but no other major casualties.

Throughout the season Jackson has taken liberty to move around the figurines. I have started taking pictures because it is really quite intriguing. He typically has a story to go along with each scene.

These are only a few of the scenes we have seen over the past few weeks. Sometimes the Kings are waiting for a train, sometimes they are all getting rest while it appears baby Jesus is out in the cold.

For those of you that may be offended by Jackson playing with something so sacred to some people, be offended no more. These figurines are nothing sacred. It’s is our Savior, Jesus who is sacred to us!  We have thoroughly enjoyed watching Jackson experience glimpses of our Savior through his simple play with these figurines!

We hope that you and yours have time to behold the beauty of the birth of our Savior!