My Humble Christmas Story

When I live in San Bernardino, there was one Christmas, I remember not only in particular, but with fondness. I will tell my kids this story, so they get the reason why we celebrate it.

I was about 9 or so. My Dad, had been laid off from work. My mom was working as a music teacher at a school, but my Dad was also in school, working on his dissertation. With little income, right before the holidays, my mother was being extra frugal. She was always frugal, but this year, even more. She had been wanting to make us some home made goodies, from scratch. But because of little money coming in, she didn't have all the ingredients, and decided it wasn't a must, to have them. She had been at the story, and seen cocoa powder, and shortening, and thought "oh, I could use this to make treats for my kids!", but it was over $3, that was outside of her budget. She regrettably put it back on the shelf, and continued to shop at the super market.

Not many knew the hardship my parents were in, not to mention with 5 small children. My moms best friend, Ellen, knew and maybe 1 or 2 others.

The Christmas season plugged along. My mom did her best at getting us presents. We went to church, and we were assigned a secret Santa family. I absolutely LOVED those! It's when you leave a treat or a present, on someones door, and doorbell ditch it, and at Christmas time, you reveal who had who. It was just fun, and made you be creative, and we all loved running, and diving through the back window of our station wagon we had. SO FUN!

One night, we heard a knock on the door...IT MUST be the secret Santa!! We all leaped to the door to see if we could catch who this wonderful Santa was that had brought us so many good things. We opened the door...and it wasn't a plate of cookies or a book. But a BIG, white box. It said "To the Elledge's, MERRY CHRISTMAS!" and had holly drawn on it with a good sharpie. My mom seemed shocked that someone would drop of something of that size, as a secret Santa gift. We opened up the box....and there were all kinds of cookies, clothes, and treats, toys for my brothers, toys for me and my sisters....and coco powder and shortening for my mom!! I watched my mom melt into tears with joy, surprise and overwhelming amount of gratitude. She picked it all up, and hugged my Dad. I remember the priceless smile on her face and the remark of "what angel has done this for us?!"

I'm 28 and a half now, and we still have no idea who made our Christmas that year. My moms best friend said she didn't even tell anyone about their trial, let alone the cocoa powder. She said it wasn't her, ad we'll never know who did that for us.

Sometimes there are Santa's all around us. But they ARE, us. I want my children to learn to give, as selflessly as that family or person did, to my family.

Holidays!

Ok, I'll admit I, I'm SOOO excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas! I've never
been a fan of the month of November, was always dark and dreary, cold, wet, rainy....but, without November ending, there would never be a December!

I packed up my kids and we all went to Target today. We got a new Christmas CD, has all the classic people, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby....I LOVE IT! I was listening to it and was like for some reason, I'm so glad I have an appreciation for music to listen to the oldies. It's like Michael Jackson, not everyone listened to him, but everyone knew who he was. I want my kids to listen, like, and enjoy listening to all those poeple.

We're having 2 thanksgiving this year. One at our house! That's the first one! in '7, I went to ID with Jeff to have it with his family, and then we had it at my family's house, and now it's timea gain to do that one again, but one here in Puyallup! I've got a recipe for Lemon and Rosemary Turkey I am going to make. The list for what I am going to make is BIG, and totally yummy!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (early!)

Birthday and Wedding Chaos!

My little sister, Hillary, got married last May. But, they waited til my brother Cody got home from his mission in Caliofrnia, to have their reception. So, we had my brother Cody home, my grandparents in from Tucson, AZ. And my older sister and her little girl in town from Canada, as well as my mother-in-law, Lori, from Idaho, YIKES!!! We spent alot of time picking up and dropping off at airports it seemed like.


Cody got home from being gone for 2 years in Southern California, on Oct 20th. We picked him up from the airport and it was almost weird to have a familiar face around! I've adjusted to only having 1 sibling in town, another one is nice!


On Thursday, the 22nd, we had Leena and Landons combined birthday party. It was fun :) Just a small thing was all it was. And then Saturday, Leena got baptized.

All in all it was an insanely busy, but FUN weekend! Thanks to all those who came out for support!


I'm SO framing this!


My Grandpa Wayne tells these "old propsector" stories, they're long, fun and very details. And he's the only person that can tell them as good as he does!


My brother, Cody, is a pretty good uncle! He will rough house with Leena and my niece Maleah all day if he had the energy to!


Leena and Cody


Cute little girl!


Opening the large amount of presents the kids got.


She REALLY wanted us to get Apples to Apples Junior.....so we did!


Cody and the girls, they loooove having their Uncle Cody back!


My Grandpa Wayne with his "Stunna shades on", cracked me up!! He's hilarious!


My mom wanted a "life size" cut out of my brother, Seth...he was big. She paid a friend all of 29 bucks to make it, and he was on a stick from about...the waist down, haha.


None of the grandkids are paying attention.


My sister and my Grandma Betty :)





Leena and Maleah