12-25-2009 Friday - Christmas in Park City!

12-20-2009 Sunday - Can You Find The Christmas Pickle???

Here is an explanation I found on the internet of this Christmas tradition our family has had for the past several years:

It is a quaint tradition that nobody wants to claim. And its story would not be the first tradition of Christmas born of a total fabrication. It is the little-known tradition of the Christmas pickle.

The Christmas pickle is not really a pickle at all. It is a pickle-shaped ornament that is the last one hung on the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child to find the Christmas pickle gets an extra gift from Saint Nicholas. Or so the so-called legend goes.

There are two other versions of the origins of the Christmas pickle. One is a family story of a Bavarian-born ancestor who fought in the American Civil War. A prisoner in poor health and starving, he begged a guard for just one pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and found a pickle for him. The pickle by the grace of God gave him the mental and physical strength to live on.

The other, perpetuated in Berrien Springs, MI, is a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the innkeeper, a mean and evil man, stuffed the boys into a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, became aware of the boys' plight, tapped the pickle barrel with his staff, and the boys were magically freed.

Berrien Springs calls itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World. They celebrate with an annual Christmas Pickle Festival held during the early part of December. A parade, led by the Grand Dillmeister who passes out fresh pickles along the parade route, is the featured event. You may even purchase the German glass pickle ornaments at the town’s museum.

Rumor and speculation place the origin of this tradition in Germany. However few in modern-day Germany recognize or have even heard of the Christmas pickle. Some in West Germany blame generations of East Germans who may have had nothing more than pickles to decorate their Christmas trees with after World War II. But even families and historians in East Germany shrug at the mention of the Christmas pickle tradition.

Regardless of where it came from, the Christmas tradition survives. Ornament manufacturers continue to make the specialty decoration and enjoy perpetuating the myth of its legendary origins -- false though they may be.

This tradition has become such a family favorite - that we now have five pickles on our Christmas tree! They are all different sizes, the smallest Drew has to find and so on. The first to find their pickle is given a little gift of money. We do not play it on Christmas like the traditional game, but just sometime during the Christmas season. It is especially hard to find the pickles in the evening with all the lights off but the tree's!

12-20-2009 Sunday - The Allred Christmas Party

We had the Allred Christmas Party last night. It was a great evening with music, gifts, dinner and visiting!

Every year we have Christmas poppers at our table. We cross arms and pull and pop! Inside the poppers are paper crowns, silly jokes, and a toy. We had kazoos, whistles, and bouncy balls all over the table (just to name a few)!

Here I am with Jeff and my blue paper crown. For dinner we had cranberry feta salad, beef tenderloin, ham, company potatoes, ambrosia salad, glazed carrots and homemade rolls. Yummy!!!

The cousins - Andrea, Lisa, Shera, Heather, Noel, and Holly.

Blake and Drago played with the little kids and hung out. Cousin Michele was in Brazil with her boyfriend's family and Vern, Olivia, and Grant were at home in Dallas this year.

Cousins Finn, August, and Luke - The Three Musketeers!

Dean and Deanne enjoyed getting Holly's CD of her songs.

All the grand kids got in line to hug and kiss Grams "thank you" for their gifts!

We even had the Penrod family surprise visiting carolers perform for us! They were awesome!

Drew, Lisa, and Heather served the desserts of Rocky Road Fudge, Peppermint Cake, and BTS Cake.

2-17-2009 Thursday - Holly's Accepted!

Holly applied to three different colleges for school next year - all of them in Utah. She's applied to BYU, Utah State, and The University of Utah.

Noel got the mail this afternoon and noticed a big envelope addressed to Holly. It was from The University of Utah. So, what would any sister naturally do? She held it up to the light to try and read it of course! Shera is learning from Noel here too!

We were so excited we decided to call Holly right away and try to coax her home from a school project she was diligently working on with her girlfriend, Robin. But instead, she told Noel to open it with her on the phone! It's always a great sign when the first sentence starts out - Congratulations!

Holly was accepted to The University of Utah!
Yay!
The girls were all screaming on the phone. And the next thing out of Holly's mouth was,
"One down, two to go!"

12-14-2009 Monday - The Kitchen Tree

We were running out of time to enjoy our little kitchen Christmas tree this year, so we decorated it before breakfast on Monday morning before school.

Jeff held Luke up to put on the star. Of course we always have a star on our Christmas trees!

Our kitchen tree is decorated very simply with colored lights, gingerbread garland, candy canes, Christmas shaped cookie cutters, and cinnamon men, stars and trees. Jeff always puts a Lionel train around it and the kids love to watch smoke come out.

Our newest addition to our kitchen tree are beautifully decorated Christmas eggs we bought in Salzburg, Austria. They are a big tradition there. They had several little egg shops in the charming old city. Each egg is blown out and hand painted with different designs or little Christmas scenes on them!

I love the three little snowmen!

I love our Christmas tree when it is dark. The lights have a rich glow about them. It looks so pretty and peaceful.

12-12-2009 Sunday - Stars Were Gleaming

Shera sang a Christmas song at church this week. Brother Breton asked her to sing it all alone and she agreed to do it. This was Shera's first solo in church. Brother Robinson played the organ while Brother Breton and Sister Tobler accompanied her on the piano. She did a great job and sounded so sweet and pure. I was a proud mama! :)

12-12-2009 Saturday - A Visit With Santa!

Could this be? Santa spanking Lukey?
Luke was pretty worried he was on Santa's naughty list this year and asked Santa if this was so... Santa said that he didn't think he was but told Luke that he would check when he got back to the North Pole later that night.

Luke still told Santa what he wanted for Christmas, just in case he was on his good list. Shera and Noel knew they had been good little girls and had no problem sharing their wish list with Santa! I guess Jeff and I have sung that song, "You better watch out..." a few too many times to little Lukey this season...

12-12-2009 Saturday - Christmas Tree Shopping!

On Saturday we finally bought our real Christmas tree. We have a large artificial one in the living room and a real one in our kitchen/family room area.

Here's Shera being crazy as the kids all play Christmas tree tag. You can guess what that means... They all run through the trees under the big white tent and play hide and tag. This is a yearly tradition for us to go here.

Here is Drew straightening up two trees that Shera knocked over!

Jeff, Drew, and Holly voted yes for this tree and so we got it!

Shera and I wanted this tree, but it was too big for us. The owner of this lot is Phil from Oregon. He cut this tree down himself from his garden. It was shading his flowers too much. It is actually a beautiful 20 year old redwood tree. It had a gorgeous look about it - with wispy loose branches and perfect shape! It was also the first time he had ever brought a redwood down to sell.

It was pouring rain on Saturday, but we were on a mission to get this done. We had to take two cars to get there since we don't have our Suburban anymore. :(

12-7-2009 Monday - Christmas Tree Decorating

After caroling, we came home and began to decorate our living room Christmas Tree. We started later this year than we have in the past. Everyone's schedules have been so chaotic this year, especially Holly's. She's been so busy with voice competitions, ACT testing, college applications, and the high school play that starts on the 10th of December. She was late and met up with us while caroling.

It was late, but we got a good chunk of the tree done.

We'll finish the rest this weekend!

Each of the kids get an ornament every year that has a special meaning to them. We write their name and year on it and they will get these later when they move away. (and I'm ready to part with the ornaments!) Here's what they got: Drew - Jeep, Holly - Butterfly, Noel - Hermit Crab, Shera - Eiffel Tower Santa, Luke - Dinosaur, Jeff - Octopus, Carol - Garden Wheelbarrow.

A little video Luke took when he got a hold of my camera!

12-7-2009 Monday - Cookies and Caroling!

I love family nights during the holidays. There are so many fun activities to do.

We made chocolate chip cookies and m&m cookies and sugar cookies. The kids loved cutting out fun Christmas shapes.

Shera loved tasting the frosting! But it seemed like wherever she was - there was some sort of spill - frosting knives falling, cookies dropping on her shirt and floor with the frosting facing downward, sprinkles everywhere - oh my goodness! What a messy girl! Tried as much as I could to keep my patience with that one!

Luke's shows his handiwork here!

Even Jeff got into the decorating - here he is getting creative with a polar bear sugar cookie!

All our cookies are ready to go!

Everyone got to pick a family to visit. We caroled and gave them a plate of cookies. Jeff visited his boss, Steve McMahon.

12-6-2009 Sunday - Sing Noel

Noel, Shera, and Luke were in Sing Noel this year again for our church's Christmas Concert. Their friend, Sophia Cadden is here with them. Noel was in the Young Women's Choir and Shera and Luke were in the Primary Choir. It's a great holiday tradition and really gets the spirit of Christmas started early (October) for the holidays.

12-1-2009 Tuesday - A Merry Christmas Target

I was at Target the other day and noticed a sign on the front door and a sign hanging up from the ceiling inside the store. It didn't say Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings...

It actually said Merry Christmas!
I was so happy to read these words that I went straight to the customer service and asked to speak to the manager. The lady asked if she could help, but I said I needed the store manager. When he came up and told him I had noticed the Merry Christmas sign on the front door of the store. He nodded and said yes, without any expression on his face. Then I thanked him for displaying the sign and a look of relief came upon his and the lady's faces. He was so glad I didn't say anything negative and he gave me a card to fill out and send to corporate headquarters. If you want to express your thanks and appreciation to Target for having Merry Christmas signs too, you can stop by customer service and ask for a postage paid comment card to send to Target Corporation.

11-30-2009 Monday - Shera's Christmas Treasure Hunt!

On family night, Shera made up a fun activity for the family. She put candy cane picture clues all over the house and we went on a Christmas Treasure Hunt! This clue said "Crafts are made, blog mom, and computer" which took us to the craft room!

One of the clues were even stuffed inside this candy cane pinata (along with candies too)!

Finally, we found the treasure: a plate of Shera's homemade chocolate chip cookies! She went all out on this one and we loved it! Thanks sweet Shera!!!

11-28-2009 Saturday - A Christmas Carol

Our family went to the Christmas Carol at the South Coast Reperatory Theatre. It has been a family tradition for about fifteen years since Drew was four years old. This was the 30th year anniversary running at SCR!

We like to get cookies and apple juice during the intermission and walk over to the huge Christmas tree by the Westin Hotel about fifty yards away.

This is a live Christmas tree covered in lights and beautiful poinsettias are planted around the base. We guess it's about a fifty foot tree.

Hal Landon Jr. plays Scrooge and has done so for the past 25 years at this same theater. This has become one our most beloved family traditions and we hope to continue coming as long as it is running there. Favorite quotes: "It's so red!" "I'm as giddy as a school boy!" "I'm a baby!" "Good afternoon!" "You whining ragamuffin!"