Peacock Postings 2013: December 2013

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Christmas fun in SLC

Saturday, the 14th we went on a fun family outing. We left early Saturday morning for Salt Lake. Our first stop was at a Denny's in downtown for breakfast with a girl Luke taught on his mission 10 years ago. Her name is Angela Charles. It was really neat visiting with her, especially for Luke, as he took a stroll down memory lane reminiscing about all the people he loved so much.

After breakfast (it was noon by now! haha) we went to the Dickens Festival at the South Towne Expo Center. Basically, it was like regular expo with booths selling fun things, but it was all decorated like old 1800 London. The merchants were all dressed in costume and we got to see Father Christmas (from afar--hello long line!, watch "Scrooge," and taste lots of yummy food samples) It was a lot of fun... not exactly like what we imagined, but it was fun and worth going to.

In the Stocks

After about 4 hours of that we left and ran to JC Pennys and Target for some tail end Christmas shopping..... we made ourselves some PB&J's in the car and headed off to catch the TRAX train, TEMPLE SQUARE BOUND.

I am pretty sure every other person in Utah thought it was a good night to go to Temple Square too. It was ridiculously busy! We even ran (quite literally) into my brother in law and sister and their family at one of the visitor centers. We had no idea they were even going to be there.

Without further ado, here are the billion pictures we took that night. (and yes, Luke was with us... he just was in a "I'm the photographer, not a photographee" kinda mood)

Waiting for the train

The kids thought it was pretty cool we were going to ride Trax.

what a silly girl.

We love watching the Nativity. It was our first stop at Temple Square

As we were leaving Temple Square we ran into Santa and Buddy the Elf.

It was on exhausting, but WONDERFUL day.

Ward Party

I am weird. I volunteered to be in charge of the ward Christmas party. I love planning parties and had some fun ideas in mind.......... it was certainly a LOT of work, but I enjoyed it (not to say I wasn't relieved to have it be over!)

We had a Polar Express themed waffle-bar breakfast on Saturday, Dec.7th. After the breakfast we went on the "Polar Express" train back in time to watch the Nativity story.

The program started with the Conductor calling "All Aboard" and had him do a variation of the scene from the movie but instead of saying, "Why, to the North Pole, of course, he said, "Why, back in time, of course!' and then we opened the curtain to reveal the set. Then the theme song from the movie played and we visited Isaiah, then the theme music again as we went to Samuel, then to Mary and Grabriel. When Jesus was born, our Mary sang, "Mary's Lullaby." When the shepherds came they gathered around Mary and Joseph and sang, "One Bright Star." Another cool thing we did was have Mary and Joseph and their young son (4) come out to meet the Wise men instead of while they were in the stable.

The Ancient Prophet, Isaiah

The Conductor

The 3 Wise Men (The Bishopric)

The Cast: Samuel the Lamanite, Angel Gabriel, and the Shepherds

Luke was the Inn Keeper and Tianna was the little child at the beginning that asked "Where?" when the Conductor said, "Well, are ya coming?"

It all turned out PERFECTLY. I was very pleased with the entire activity. I loved how it was decorated, the meal was delicious (and I asked a couple to take care of that portion of the activity so I didn't have to stress over it) and I LOOOVED how the program turned out. Even the weather held off until after everyone arrived.
The icing on the cake was finding the backdrop for the Nativity in the church closet where the tables were kept. We literally found it while setting up. I found out who made it and she just leaves it there for anyone to use. It made the whole thing so much better. I was very very pleased with the whole activity!