Christmas is Coming Again #9

2002 – Michelle’s 9th Christmas

Early in the year we moved again, so at Christmas-time we had to adapt traditions and decorations once more. This house, though, actually had a fireplace with a wooden mantel, so we added hooks and were able to hang the stockings properly.

There was a new first this Christmas – a missionary phone call. This was a highlight of Christmas Day, and continued to be our favorite hour of the holiday for many years to come.

During December, Michelle kept busy with helping to decorate the tree, singing in the ward Christmas program, and counting the gifts under the tree.

Christmas morning we have to wait for everyone to be ready before opening any gifts, even the stockings. As you might imagine, there’s always a fair amount of “investigating” during that time.

Look at that – the typical Legos and video games! I still can’t fathom why my children prefer store-bought cookies over homemade ones, but they did, so receiving a package of Keebler cookies was actually really exciting.

We also found a gift for our family in the neighbor’s garage.

When we moved to our one-acre lot, the boys started asking for a riding lawn mower. Dad said that wasn’t necessary, and that they could just take turns, an hour at a time, using the walk-behind mower we already had. Later that summer the kids and I spent a couple of weeks visiting my parents, so Wayne had the opportunity to mow the lawn. He called after that first experience and said he was never again spending an entire day mowing the lawn, and that we needed to get a riding mower. We decided it could wait until Christmas, but once the new year rolled around, we never heard another complaint about who’s turn it was to mow the lawn. In fact, each week it was a race to see who got to choose that chore first!

Weston’s 9th Christmas – “Too Old to Believe in Santa?”