Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Hello friends and family! It was a tradition of mine growing up that the grandkids would put on a bit of a "talent show," showcasing things like songs and instruments they learned over the last year. The Erdmann side grew out of it fairly quickly, but the Wilson side persisted for many more years. Most of us grandkids are now adults, and a few of us have our own children. Some of the great-grandkids will still perform, but mostly we've taken to family caroling in the living room while my aunt Koreen plays piano. We finally resorted to printing out lyrics because most of us don't remember more than one verse.

This year, with covid canceling all of our family parties, I wanted to share a "Christmas Program" of sorts with you. We hope you enjoy these Christmas videos. Stay safe, and Merry Christmas!

(If you'd like to see our "Year in Review," click here.)

Andrew, piano - Up On the Housetop

Henlie, piano - Deck the Halls

Merry Christmas from the Biggs Family!

December 29th, Matt's cousin Trevor got married in the Salt Lake temple. The reception was held at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Well, being December, this also afforded us the perfect opportunity to see the lights at Temple Square.

We arrived and met up with Matt's family and headed into the reception where we enjoyed chatting with extended family and eating Mexican food :) Then we wandered outside to see the lights. The fam had to leave earlier and I don't know how much of the lights they got to see or not because they took the train up. But after we said goodbye to Grandma, we wandered around until we had seen most everything and were rather cold :)


Then we headed back to City Creek where we were parked. We got to the fountain just in time for a show, so we watched that. It was pretty neat seeing fire and water together! After the fountain show, we ran into Braden and Michelle and headed down to the parking garage with them.


I'm so glad we got to go see the lights. And it was so good to share in Trevor and Cierra's big day. We wish the best for them in their new life together as a family :)

December 26th was the Covalt Christmas party. We reserved the condo clubhouse at got things set up for some dinner. Grandma bought pizza, so we ate some yummy pizza and cheese sticks for dinner while chatting with the family. 

Sharon brought a piñata, but the only kids were Henlie and McKade haha. Grandma Covalt took a couple swings at it as well. They finally got it open, and with a little help from Sharon.  


Darryl and Kris Ann brought a whole bunch of fun-taped PVC pipes. Turns out they make a fun group game!


Again, it was another successful party getting to spend time with family :)

The day finally arrived, Christmas! Matt and I decided not to "do" Santa as gift-bringer, but this year, Henlie was all about the Fat Man and wanted to know if Santa was going to be coming to our house. Ah well. Thank you, rest of the world and Christmas shows haha. By 12:30am, everything was laid out and ready for the morning. (Truthfully, it was only so late because I stayed up late and was all.... oh yeah, guess I should do that :))

Henlie was up before 7am, although that's not necessarily unusual. I made her wait to go to the living room until Dad was up and I could get there first to video her entrance.

Dad started off with stockings. Our tradition has now become an orange (usually a clementine or mandarin) in the toe and a crap-load of candy. (Stocking stuffers are the bane of my Christmas existence.) This year's ornaments from us from Peru were little, so I also stuck those in the stockings. Andrew was kept fairly content being given (or taking) pieces of candy (still wrapped) and trying to eat them.



Then we moved on to presents. Presents don't take too long since we have vastly downsized Christmas. Having one year being fairly broke sure helped with that haha.

Henlie got two RSL shirts, two pots of Play-Doh (orange and pink), some new bath crayons, a Clifford sticker book, snow pants, and a brand new bed! Grandma and Grandpa Erdmann also gave both kids handmade teddy bears. We got Andrew and Henlie a set of alphabet magnets as well. Andrew also got a couple of new onesies.



Matt got a new RSL shirt. I got two RSL shirts (Henlie and I have one that matches :)) Matt also owes me a massage at our chiropractor's office. He was going to buy a gift card or pre-buy it, but he didn't get around to it. I still need to schedule it :)



After presents, it was time for breakfast! We had our traditional caramel cinnamon rolls along with some turkey bacon and scrambled eggs. The Biggs' side wasn't gathering until later, so we had some downtime. Daddy and Henlie put together her new bed.


Finally it was time to go to Grandma's. We had McKade this year. He's been doing percussion, so Matt got him some nice earplugs. We also got him an Amazon gift card so he can buy a kindle book or two. As we've been unpacking, we have accumulated a lot of bubble wrap. We brought some over for the others who were moving to use if they wanted, and McKade always would take some and pop it. So....since we got him such a little present anyway, we wrapped it in lots and lots of bubble wrap for funsies. 



I think the highlight gift for the kids was the Grandma's Playhouse. Grandma made all of the families with kids matching playhouses. (Parents got the bonus of a new folding table and chairs!) That and the fake snowballs were lots of fun for the girls to play with. We also called Jackie and Curtis in Korea on the computer. Christmas is the best :)



Eventually it was time to go home and head to bed. It sure was nice being able to sit up on a bed to read Henlie bedtime stories :) Cinco thought the new bed was rather nice, too :)

The Erdmann side doesn't get together for Christmas anymore. (It causes Grandma too much stress, and we are a very large family now, so it's hard lining up places and schedules.) This meant we had to make a separate trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Erdmann to give them their Christmas gift. Lucky for us, Grandma and Grandpa Wilson live practically around the corner now, so we headed to Mapleton early to see the Erdmanns for a bit before heading to the Wilsons.

We actually arrived at the Wilson party a little late. Typically that side of the family is notorious for late starts, but it seems they started fairly close to on time. I was impressed. We walked in in time for some dinner and to grab a couple pass-along gifts before opening time came.


After dinner and pass-alongs, we had our program. Henlie sang Jingle Bells (with some help from Mom). Then it was Christmas carols before my reading of the Luke 2 story and Silent Night. This year, instead of Grandma's big scriptures and a flashlight, I remembered I had technology and pulled it up on my phone. Backlighting for the win! ;)

Then it is time for presents! Andrew skipped his turn since he was napping (we go youngest to oldest). I went a little bit mama bear on everyone because there was lots of noise and talking. The whole point of turn-taking is so everyone can watch and see what everyone else got... besides, less noise makes it more enjoyable anyway ;)


After presents, it was time to gather our things, change into our Christmas jammies, and head home to bed :)

Christmas Eve morning, we met up with Matt's family and Brian and Melody's family at the zoo to see the animals with their Christmas enrichments. We started the morning off in the parking lot enjoying doughnuts, bagels, milk, and chocolate milk before heading into the zoo.

The rest of this post will pretty much be pictures unless I recall something I really want to share. Because, really, the zoo it just looking at all of the animals ;)




I love going to the zoo! Next it was home for a few hours before we headed to Mapleton for a family party!

December 23rd, our advent calendar sent us to Sip-N for some hot cocoa (and fries lol) and then down to the Payson temple to see the nativity. We didn't get out til late (for us, like 6:45pm or so) and the weather was bitter cold. We parked at the temple and quickly made our way to the nativity, snapped a few pictures, and headed home. I hope next year we can go earlier in the day because the nativity was backlit and hard to take pictures of. Also, I could go for it being warmer, too :)

Here are a few of the pictures we took :)

After playing at the Museum of Natural Curiosity, we headed over to Brian and Melody's new house for the Hadfield Christmas party. We ate yummy dinner and had a wonderful lesson by Grandpa Hadfield. There was music and chit-chatting and general hanging out with family fun times. Matt met up with us there after work. Henlie was gone most of the evening playing with the kids downstairs in Munchkin Land (the basement is a glorified craw space. Perfect for little bodies. Great for storage. Not so great for grown people to stand up in haha. I asked Mel for a tour since we weren't around for the Halloween party they hosted. Their new house is so fun :)

Monday, Dec. 21st, Michelle graciously gave us a ride to meet up with Devan and Kayla, and Camile and the girls at the Museum of Natural Curiosity. We gave Jason and Camile a Thanksgiving Point membership last year for Christmas, and they can bring guests, who get 50% off admission. Way more economical that way ;) We were all heading to Lehi that night for the Hadfield Christmas party anyway, so why not make the most of our time and go play?

We hadn't been since before it officially opened, so we didn't get to see the water area. We ducked in there for a few minutes to see what there was. After playing with a topography map, we headed to Kidopolis. Can I just interject that having more adults than children makes it SO nice!

The kids had so much fun at all the different shops and things. We still had plenty of time before we needed to head to Brian and Melody's for the Hadfield Christmas party, so we started to head to the jungle. On our way out, I remembered we hadn't hit the music room yet! We played in there while Danica and Camile hung out in the itty-bitty kids' garden.


We hung out in the jungle for awhile. This is where multiple childless adults came in super handy. Devan and Michelle ended up taking Charlie and Henlie on the temple run/climb thing that goes up and above the jungle. The babies and the rest of us just hung out wandering around and weighing ourselves in comparison to various animals. :)


Then it was time to head over to Brian and Melody's for the party! Thanks to Michelle for driving us since Matt was working, and thanks to Camile for both suggesting the idea and getting us in for half off! It's always so much fun to hang out with family, and Henlie just loves her Charlie friend :)