Christmas Traditions (Georgia Boys' Choir)

 Last year we went to the concert of the Georgia Boys Choir.  A family that we love in our ward has two sons in the choir.  Besides that, the music is incredible and I LOVE every second of the program.

McKay usually isn't too excited about this performance and plays with the hymn books or Josh's phone until he falls asleep.

 The boys put on their new Christmas clothes and we headed to the most beautiful church down in Buckhead.

Another of our traditions is to make gingerbread men.  I usually dip half of each of them in chocolate and we all devour them.  This year I found a new cookie cutter and we made "ninja"bread men.  I think the boys liked the change :)

Gingerbread Houses

 This year we decided to make gingerbread houses with the missionaries when they came over for dinner.  One of them (Elder Sosa) was from Brazil and it was a new thing that he had never heard of.  Elder Sosa ended up spending the most time on his and doing a wonderful job!

 Usually the boys just try to put as much candy on their house as possible.  If it is asthetically pleasing, it is totally coincidental.  

 We really love these elders.  Elder Jackson and Elder Sosa. 

 McKay started out taking his time...but in the end he just started pouring the icing on the house.

This is the first year that everyone had their own gingerbread house.  Usually we only do 1 or 2.  I think that part of the tradition is definitley here to stay.  It was so fun to see what each person decided to do.  

Letters to Santa

 We are still working on translating our Utah traditions to Georgia.  Last year we were sort of at a loss as to what to do during the holidays.  This year we printed off some cute letter head from this site, had the boys write some letters to St. Nick and headed to Macey's to send them off to the big guy.

 We couldn't find the mail box at first so Josh had us wait by this Santa while he went and asked.  The boys spent the time trying to figure out how they could jam their letters into the Santa...

 We finally found it and McKay was especially excited about sending it off.

Thank goodness for Christmas traditions that are easily transferable!

Hunter's 4th Grade Christmas Party

 I don't get to spend very much time in Hunter's class, so I was more than thrilled to go to his class Christmas party.

 I'm noticing a trend in class parties.  They are all pretty much the same :)

 Using a straw to transfer marshmallows from bowels.

 Stacking cups in to a Christmas tree...a red one.

Hutner's teacher is Jewish so she showed them how to play with a dreidel (no idea how to spell that).

Christmas Tea

I have a wonderful friend, Shelley, who loves high tea as much as I do.  She found a Christmas tea put on by one of the local plantation houses and we decided to go.  The house was all decked out for Christmas and the whole ambience was perfect.

 It was fun to get all dressed up and to go to tea with a gaggle of ladies (most who were over 50...we were definitely the youngest people there).  The ladies who put it on were a little baffled we wanted herbal tea.  

 Cutest Christmas mouse on our dessert plates.

 After dinner we got a tour of the plantation house.  It was defintely grand and beautiful.

 This is where Teddy Roosevelt's mother was married.  She lived in this house and so did President Roosevelt when he was young. 

 The was the kitchen in the basement of the house. 

 I don't get to do many "girlie" things.  I completely loved this experience.

Palmer Chorus/Chamber Choir

 Palmer chose to do choir for one of his electives in middle school this year.  I was so happy that he was going to do something with music.  He also decided try out for the chamber choir and ended up making it.  He has such a good voice and I love that he had the chance to use it this year.

 His Christmas concert was so neat and they even sang songs in different languages.

 He sort of laughed at the fact that he was a first soprano :)

 A few weeks later he was chose to be part of a District Honors Chorus where he went for two days (and got to miss school, which he was pretty excited about).  They learned a few songs and then performed them.

 I really love that he had this experience.

It was also so fun to see him dessed up in a tux!