Monday night we did another fun Christmas tradition:  making gingerbread houses.  Many years ago I would bake real gingerbread.  It was an ordeal for me.  Finally I decided it was just not worth all the stress, time, and effort.  Especially after the time where I sneezed for an hour straight because I got some flour dust in my nose.  So now we use graham crackers. My husband constructs the houses.  He takes 3 full-size graham crackers and cuts them in half using a knife.  Then he takes 4 halves and uses a glue gun to make the base of the house.  Then he glues the other two halves together to make a roof.  He then glues the roof onto the house and then glues the whole house on to a paper plate.  Obviously they aren't edible houses with the glue on them but are any gingerbread houses edible after they've sat out and gotten rock hard?  Plus using hot glue means we don't have to come up with little milk cartons to construct the houses around. The beauty of the graham c

By pure luck, our family was able to begin the Christmas season in one of the best ways I can think of.  In October, we got tickets to see "Sacred Gifts" at the BYU Museum of Art.  Our tickets just happened to be for November 29, which was Black Friday.  So we took our family out to eat (a Black Friday tradition) and then we went to the exhibit.  I think my children generally liked it, especially with the Ipads we rented at the exhibit which gave additional information.  My husband and I really enjoyed it and hope to go back without them sometime.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the exhibit but here are some I got online: The exhibit featured works from three European artists:  Carl Bloch, Heinrich Hofmann, and Frans Schwartz.  They were late 19th century artists specializing in religious paintings, particularly paintings of Christ.  This quote, taken from the  website says, "Most of these works have never before been on view in the United States,

I have to admit that I don't particularly enjoy the preparations for Christmas.  The list of things I need to do seems so long.  I worry about disappointing my children with their gifts on Christmas morning. I worry about buying things that will really be useful or enjoyable for all the people on my list.  Do we really need more junk in our house?  Once I decide what I'm going to get, then I have to find it at a price I'm willing to pay and soon enough to get packages shipped to relatives living far away.  It all seems so complicated. Because there are four birthdays in our family during December (two boys and two in-laws), I have tried to do a lot of my shopping in November so I don't get completely overwhelmed.  But this year I rebelled and worked on other projects.  Now I'm paying for it and it's a little stressful. But I don't really want Christmas to take over November as well as December so how do I solve this problem?  Hoping for a few ideas, I

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree.  As we did it, I thought to myself that this is one of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I love to make lists so here is a list of the reasons it's one of my favorites: 1.  We have a set time.  We do it the first Monday night in December.  That's the date we decided worked the best. Monday night is Family Night so we already have that time open when everyone is there.  When anyone wants to put up the Christmas decorations early, I have a date to tell them.  I don't feel conflicted about putting it up earlier because that's the day.  And personally, I think that Christmas should not start taking over the month of November too. 2.  We have a fake tree.  This makes putting up our Christmas tree so much quicker.  If you have to go buy a tree, you've already doubled the amount of time it takes to put it up and decorate it.  I admit, real trees are lovely and nicer than fake trees.  Some of them have a nice smell a