The Hazard Chronicles

It has been a wonderful Christmas vacation.

For a long time we had been planning on going down to Utah for the holidays to spend time with Rachel's family. Unfortunately, due to conflicting work schedules this ended up not working out very well for us. Instead, we decided to spend Christmas at home with just our family, and visit the Utah folk at a later time (I think we decided on February?). Anyway- this is something we had not done before, and what started out as a let down turned into a lot of excitement as we realized that we could, for the first time, be one hundred percent in charge of what Christmas was going to be like for our family.

Now, I'm not totally sure how to make this an interesting narrative to read. Basically, we had a great vacation. I had six days off work and the kids weren't in school and we made the best of it.

On the day before Christmas Eve we went to a church for a big candlelight ceremony thing that was actually pretty neat. They had good music and they did a demonstration where one person lit a candle who then, in turn lit other people's candles, and so on. It was neat to see how quickly the 2,000 or so people in attendance were all holding flaming candles, and it was a good way to share a positive message.

This isn't the thing we went to- but it was sort of like this. (I think this is a picture of a candlelight vigil for a fallen protester or something. I found it on Google.)

The next day (Christmas Eve) we had our big dinner that everyone helped to make. Afterwords, the kids acted out the Baby Jesus story and then they each got pajamas that were given to them from Deanna and Dave. Finally, they set out their stockings, left goodies for Santa, and then went into Evelyn's room for a slumber party. It was a fun night.

Christmas morning was pretty typical. The kids got up and saw their stockings, then came upstairs to see the presents that Santa left for them. We sorted presents into piles and then went in a circle and opened them one at a time, giving ample time in between to un-package and explore the new gifts. In all it took about two hours for everyone to open stuff. It was so much fun. And of course they loved all of their presents, but I think their favorite one was a trampoline that was given to them from G&G Hazard. This was a hard one to keep secret due to its enormous size, but somehow we managed to set it up in the back yard without the kids knowing until the big reveal when we pulled up the blinds and watched the stunned expressions on their faces. It really was a priceless moment, and I wish I had thought to take a picture or something. I didn't though. I guess it was a moment reserved only for those who were there, and like so many other important moments, will have to live on only in the fragile and mutable memories of those who were present. C'est la vie.

A few days after Christmas we got our first real snow of the year, and the kids and I had a fun time building a snowman in the backyard. Everyone helped, and I think it turned out pretty good.

If you look closely you can see our new trampoline in the background.

We also went sledding. About three blocks from our house we have a golf course with great hills. They also have a club house that stays open all year long, has a small diner that serves donuts and hot chocolate, and has a window that overlooks the sledding hills. This is a perfect arrangement for us since there are usually not all seven of us who are willing to brave the elements all at once. We can all go sledding, and then take shifts in and out of the warm building while watching the others freeze- sort of like a ski lodge that specialized in selling overpriced preppy-style clothing.

Here's Ev and Jack warming up in the "lodge"

Finally, Evelyn was in charge of our weekly dessert night and she chose to do gingerbread houses. Here are some picture. By the way- the kids all voted and decided that I won for best-decorated house. I think they just saw that it had the most candy on it :).

Have a good week!