All the Hoopla Leading up to Christmas

I am looking through pictures from all these December days and feel so overwhelmed with gratitude for all these people I got to be with: a cocoon of so much love.

And sometimes feistiness.

And tears and service and learning. And a WHOLE lot of cleaning and cooking and bleary-eyed staying up way too late. But also the beautiful kind of connection that sometimes only comes late at night.

All the things you get when you reunite as a family with your favorite people who have grown up to become more fully themselves and moved away. We have done so much together and so much has happened since Lucy and Claire were the first to trickle into Arizona for the first leg of our Christmas journey.

I know I’ve said this before, but I want to reiterate how incredible it is to reunite with your family…ALL your family, after such a long absence. Oh we’ve seen each other and gathered in different configurations. We’re pretty good at that. But every single one of these eleven together? Not since we were only ten of us, before Claire’s mission. And there wasn’t one day that I didn’t look around and think, “I am the luckiest lady in all the land.”

Also, I love that Elle and Abby had film cameras and just sent us the pictures they took.

There’s something so cool about film, and man alive, sometimes I miss it.

Anyway, all that said, I’m going to go way back to start this post just so I can have all the pre-Christmas festivities together…and they started clear back in the beginning of December starting with Christmas book club.

Christmas Book Club

Gosh I love these ladies I’ve learned so much from over the years (and all those who weren’t able to be here this particular night). There’s usually a book exchange at Christmastime and this time was it.

Lucy to the MCO Concert

In the meantime, we helped Lucy finagle her way down to meet lots of my Utah family for the beloved MCO concert. Can you tell how she felt about that?

My parents and sister said her enthusiasm sitting next to them was electric. Oh MCO has such a special spot in her heart and it made my heart almost hurt with gratitude that she got to do that.

And that my sister was willing to drive her all the way back up to school when it was over.

There are angels everywhere!

London at Christmastime

Speaking of angels, they are all over adorning London.

Dave and I got the rare opportunity to get in the Christmas spirit in London at the beginning of December this year.

It was a bucket-list item for sure, and man, that place is magical! Some day I will do a write-up on that.

Sisters Chocolate Dipping

I ran up to dip chocolates with my sisters. They do this as an annual tradition and I was so excited I got to join them this year. It was so good to bask in their goodness even for a little bit. Along with our dear family friend Amy and her daughter who were in town for her wedding!

Love them!

Our Relief Society Christmas Dinner

And right at the same moments we were scrambling to get our Relief Society Christmas dinner pulled off. Something I had been fretting about trying to get the word out with our committee, the speakers scheduled, my own message ready. And it all came together, my mom’s light joining with everyone else to fill up the magical wonderland my friend and her sister had put together in her yard.

I mean, really, it was pretty incredible how they set it up, check this out:

Also, I love each of those women filling up those tables so much.

…the messages shared all about how to bring Christ into our homes at Christmas.

These women (and others who we missed) who put it all together:

My Parents’ Christmas Visit

My parents came in all their glory and goodness, right in the fray of our post-London re-entry, and I mentioned my mom was there with us for the Relief Society dinner. Boy I love them!

They were here for my Dad’s tennis tournament, but there was also time for my dad to sit in the sun (ha!), and for my mom to help with anything and everything she could get her hands on:

We went to dinner on a twinkling Christmas porch in the big city.

Back at home mom helped get stockings ready,

I made sourdough bread with a new recipe amidst the hubbub of everything else going on. Why do I add things in like that when it’s the last thing I should be doing??

We played bridge together at night

My mom and I went on a walk through all the fall beauty:

Visited Josh’s classroom and had dinner with him…

Oh, and of course a little cello and hanging out…

I had a special Christmas lunch with friends (a tradition we started a few years ago where we have lunch and exchange gifts and talk deep and catch up amidst the Christmas chaos):

Meanwhile back in Utah, Murphy made some very special Christmas cards and deliveries:

Lucy’s Arrival

Lucy arrived in all her post-first-college-semester glory.

She did it: that whole first college semester.

Oh it was not easy. And there’s a lot she wants to change. I LOVE that she called me and Dave before she came home to tell us she wanted to get advice over Christmas about this. We are so proud of her. She is maturing in so many ways. But still so much to learn.

And I’m so happy she overlapped for a few hours with mom and dad here. Love how they love and support her. She needed that extra dose of love.

Church Christmas

I had to sneak out of Relief Society to see Dave be a wiseman for one of the primary stations:

…and then I caught a glimpse of the other stations too:

I just sat there with so much gratitude seeping into my heart for all the efforts that church leaders put in to make things special.

Other Pre-Kid Gathering Stuff

…while Lucy was the only one here…

Nana and Papa came for dinner and a game night:

We gathered to celebrate a Christmas birthday with friends:

Yes, it was hot enough in December to gather at the pool…so strange!

Snuck away one night to meet up with with some design friends at a Christmas thing:

Fall is GLORIOUS in December in the desert!

The Thick of Christmas Gathering

I willed to get so much done early this Christmas. Oh how I wanted to be present. But each year I admire my mom and Dave’s mom more than ever. How they did this for NINE children. And continued doing it as those nine children expanded again and again. All the logistics, the planning, the buying, the grocery shopping, the wrapping. It is just so much even when you start early.

As I look back on that swirl of worry and logistics and constant motion, I want to remember the beauty and the mayhem. From my mind pinging in every different direction working on Christmas cards (Elle had mercy on me and designed those things for me even when she was so busy with work jobs, and every year I forget what a giant pain it is to wrangle all the addresses together), going from this on the left to this on the right:

Thank you Elle!!

…to piles of gifts and goodies to be delivered covering my kitchen counter:

…to sitting on the floor wrapping up gifts while Dave, Lu and I watched Survivor (one of the few things we can get her to do with us these days)…

Also, Dave, Lu and I got to go to a special Christmas bingo night put on by our amazing neighbors:

…before the other kids arrived, to the fact that my older kids actually requested to do some of my favorites this year: hike and midnight mass.

Claire’s Arrival

Claire arrived to join in with Lucy and we were pretty excited about that…

She still had her very last final: Chinese, but once she got through it she helped label Christmas cards…

And then she had a friend join us for a few days.

We hiked:

We went to see the temple lights:

We rode bikes through all the fall glory to downtown Gilbert to go to the farmer’s market and eat on a sunny patio surrounded by golden leaves.

Bo got a little tuckered out on the way home…

Elle & Carson’s Arrival

When Elle and Carson arrived (hooray!!) we did F1 racing:

…and played pickleball under the most gorgeous sunset filling up the sky:

Meanwhile Lucy held a successful white elephant party (she’s tried to do this probably every single year and this year it was finally a success).

It was the sweetest to have all those girls gathered around her making her feel special. The majority of them are putting in mission papers which is so strange. How did these baby girls all grow up so quickly??

Lots of moving parts with Lucy trying to bake cookies for those friends and Nana and Papa coming over to play games, all of us squished around the big round table…

Then later all of us sitting in the steaming hot tub in the dark of night outside, talk, talk, talking.

Christmas Sunday & Max & Abby’s Arrival

Max and Abby arrived bright and early with those girls bouncing and happy, all of us filling up the row of hard chairs in the overflow at church. The only one missing was Grace who had to work until the 23rd.

Church and goodness.

Since it was only one-hour Christmas church our new bishopric decided to do a meet-up at the park under the golden leaves filtered by the sun for the second hour.

Annual Pothier Christmas Party

The annual Pothier Christmas party was that night. We had soup and a devotional led by the kids, a puppet show nativity also put on by the kids.

Then Dave introduced a new dancing game with prizes and the best cheering.

Some of the winners of the “early” prizes:

Sure love all these people, as well as the ones I didn’t get photos of:

Annual Gingerbread House Making

The timing worked out that we could still get to our friends’ annual gingerbread house making with some of our favorite families. Tables spilling out with every kind of candy imaginable, creativity oozing out with all those supplies to decorate our houses.

A contest where Claire & Elle and Tonia & Lucy teams were in the finals, and Lu & Tonia came away with the win.

So much love with those four families❤️

Standing around the counter in the kitchen, counter piled high with gifts, playing Hitster. I love them with this well of love that is so deep.

Murphy Rules

We sure had fun with both of these little grandbabies. There’s nothing like having babies around, am I right??

Murph was all about the impromptu dance parties:

Bo learning to give her high-five, and she was pretty excited one of the “must-dos” was a trampoline park:

Also, horses.

One of my favorites was that Murph is really into Harry Potter. And one of Claire’s friends has a perfect “Dobby voice.” So she had messages for Murph to listen to. Within a day or two Claire and Elle got good at the Dobby voice and sent her messages as well. It was pretty cute.

Bowling

On our “list of most important Christmas things” there was bowling listed, so we did it.

It was so fun that my brother and his daughter happened to be in town for a few hours to join us for a minute there!

The Giving Machine

Breakfast with the Girls

The boys went golfing one morning and the plan was for us girls to ride bikes to the Coffee Shop. Eating breakfast out on the patio in the slanted winter sun.

Our neighborhood aglow with the most beautiful yellow trees, sun streaming through.

Grace’s Arrival

And THEN, on the 23rd, Grace finally arrived after several long shifts at work and we were so happy to get her.

La Mesa Ministries

One of my FAVORITE things was watching all the kids (including Murphy) interact with the men and women we got to meet while serving dinner at La Mesa Ministries. Oh man, I love that place, religions working together to help the church that started feeding hundreds of homeless every Tuesday night.

Lucy marched right in and found a spot she could stand to hand out plates full of food (she knows how to make herself useful there and I love it so much).

There were lots of volunteers there that night and it would have been easy for any of the kids to get on their phone or stand against a wall and observe. But I loved how each kid found a spot where they were needed to really connect with people and look them right in the eyes. Whether it was at one of the tables or out on the porch.

Murphy was extra endeared to the couple guys who brought dogs they let her pet. And was so good at passing out our candy canes and saying “Merry Christmas!”

We stopped at the temple lights one more time en route back to catch a quick movie.

…which led to be another one of my favorite unlikely moments of Christmas, standing in the parking lot after that talk, talk, talking about the issues in the movie and our thoughts about them.

A Christmas Eve Morning Hike

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Grace, Elle, Carson and I huffed and puffed up a mountain and I just loved being out there in my desert with them, getting a chance to talk deeper with each.

And with that, PHEW!!!

If you made it through this MARATHON post then you are a true champ. Gosh I have been bad at record keeping lately so here’s the result. Thanks for sticking with me.

Next up: Christmas Eve!