Back to Basics

This year, with most of our belongings still taking out residence in boxes in our garage, we have had the opportunity to get back to basics with Christmas.  Gone is our tree and all its trimmings.  Gone are our other decorations.  Gone is our box of favorite Christmas stories (which we truly do miss).  Gone is our advent calendar.

In their place, we found a real tree and have been adding one ornament a day, thanks to a very timely and valuable Christmas present from our aunt and uncle--25 days of Christ (a great reminder each day of some part of the Savior's life, with scripture references, video references from the Bible Videos found on LDS.org, and ornaments included).  We added some stockings and one other decoration we found.  That's it.  Simple is best.  It has really felt good.

Of course, we have kept our tradition (get the back story here) of homemade gift giving alive for Christmas Eve.  Gifts are steadily making their way under the tree in preparation for our gift exchange.  We are all excited for what we have created to give.