Dazzlingly Delirious December~the beginning

Do you remember in the November post that I wondered if I would entitle December as Dazzling or Delirious? Well, December has been both, so it is Dazzlingly Delirious December. And I never saw a month live up to its name so well. Oh my goodness! What a month! A fitting close to a dazzling year, I guess. We celebrated some important birthdays this month, baby Jesus, of course, Joseph Smith, DeWitt (17), Rachel, Thomas Wyatt (5), and Hyrum (3).

We kicked off the month with Grandpa's Polar Express party in Safford.

We had carolers come by...the Evans family and the Safford 5th Ward Relief Society Presidency's families.

Mary and Tyson invited us and Stetson to eat a delicious post-Thanksgiving dinner with them. They had been in California on Thanksgiving day with Tyson's family, so they had it, complete with all the trimmings, on the 1st Monday in December.We then had Grandpa's Polar Express party in Mesa, at Jeremy and Erika's house. They were so generous to let us invade their home. Then the next day, we stayed to attend Reygan's piano recital. She played "Oh Holy Night." What a beautiful song, played by a beautiful girl. We were very proud of her.

Thomas and Jenn and their family came to Safford just in time to attend 5th Ward's Christmas Party. Mary and Tyson and their kids came too. They were all excited because there was going to be Santa to top off the festivities. Well the man they brought to impersonate the real Santa looked more like a biker in red, and you can see by Maya's expression that she wasn't impressed.

DeWitt celebrated his 17th birthday in December. We went to his house for a family birthday party.

Then, of course, we got to attend the primary schools' Christmas programs. Luke was an elf, Brynlie and Camille were reindeer, and Brianna was a snowflake.


Rachel celebrated her birthday with a lunch at Rebecca's.

Then, of course, we went to Grandma and Grandpa Hiatt's annual Christmas party, with fabulous food...
the ever-popular pinata...Brody is investigating it (to see if he wants to eat it) and Hyrum took a bash at it. All the other kids under 12 had a chance too. There were bags of candy for everyone.

The Nativity at Grandma's party

All the kids under 12, who wanted to, got to sit on Santa's lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. I included, here, the ones who were not at our house on Christmas eve.
Soren
Crew
Reygan (the only one I had of her

was with Rylie)
Marlie
Harrison
Hayden Tayte

Bridger
Ellie

Thomas set up his train around the Christmas tree.

Brody and Soren dancing with Jack Black...I put this because right afterwards, Brody got deathly sick with an incarcerated inguinal hernia and had to have surgery. Esther's family had been planning to visit us in Safford a few days before Christmas, but Brody's surgery took precedence, of course. It was a few days before he was back to dancing again. But when we saw him at the cabin, he was thankfully back to his old energetic self.

Rachel had her 2nd annual Elf party complete with spaghetti...and syrup for die hard Elf purists.
Thomas Wyatt and Hyrum celebrated their birthdays on neither day...right between the 19th and the 30th. Jenn made a cake and Thomas decorated it to look like their favorite Ben-10 watch.

Thomas & Hyrum in their Ben-10 shirts

Daniel and Connie's family came early for the reunion, in time to spend Christmas with us. Daniel's and Thomas' family enjoyed the pool on a

sunny winter's day. Then we all enjoyed our traditional Christmas Eve dinner/breakfast of pork chops, potatoes, eggs,juice and sweet breads.



The kids after the Nativity pageant. What a beautiful group of children! Santa came to our house to visit before his Christmas Eve run... Brynlie

Maya
Emma Luke

Lindsay
Camille Kirtlyn

Carson

Thomas W.

Jonathan
Hyrum
Shannyn
Albert
Analynn
Isabel
Polly
Parker
Shadrach
DeWitt
Porter
Devynne
Allison
Brynlie Lillian

Rylie Brianna

E
I apologize for having the labels for the kids' pictures all on the wrong places...Just pick which kid you recognize and look for his.her name somewhere nearby. Everyone was there except Dallin...who was on a date...and we didn't have an age restriction either. Santa talked to each kid and gave him/her a gift. Then the Evans family wanted a picture with Santa, I don't know why they especially wanted one more than anyone else did.

Hyrum putting up with hugs from cousin Lindsay.On Christmas morning, everyone who had slept downstairs (the Daniel Biggses, the Thomas Biggses and the Richins) came to the stairs for prayer before checking to see if Santa had been there.He had! Wow! What a generous Santa he was, too!

After Christmas, the family prepared to go to Pine for our family reunion, which was supposed to go from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon. Daniel's family had come from Colorado for the event, and Nathan's family was on its way from Nebraska. Both, with visions of sunny Arizona days. However, Dad and Daniel got on their computers and found that the weather forecast was less than sunny for those days...in fact it forecast heavy snowfall. We considered having the reunion in Safford, but the grandchildren had all gotten so excited to go to Pine, and the prospect of snow only made them more eager to go. So, not wanting to disappoint all of them, and being sure that it couldn't possibly be as bad as predicted, we decided to go ahead and have it in Pine. It's hard to imagine being snowbound when you are sitting in the nice, warm desert. It just sounds fun. Well, Daniel had enough experience with snowfall that he didn't take any chance with driving his family through two mountain passes in a heavy snowstorm. He loaded up and took his family home before the storm hit. The rest of us blithely went ahead and went to Pine. Most of us didn't even bring snow gear. A few did, thank goodness, and they were willing to share. Check the next blog to see what happened. Check "older posts" even if you have seen "the reunion" blog, because Thomas added a really neat video at the bottom.