Saturdays Before Christmas

We are getting ready. If the Grinch can't keep Christmas from coming neither can college professors, despite their determination to pour on excessive amounts of homework and their dedication to designing horrifying exams with the intent of keeping holiday cheer at bay until the last possible moment. We remain joyful and triumphant.

Saturdays have been our big days for Christmas-ing. And watching Cougar Basketball, which does as much for my holiday mood as anything. The last two Saturdays have been spent in Salt Lake City watching the Cougars play at the Energy Solutions Arena and heartily beating such teams as Hawaii and Arizona. Lovely.

Amelia is being properly raised in the way she should go so that when she is old she will be a Cougar fan. She loves the fight song and cheers "Rah, rah, rah" in the car all the time now.

After the basketball games the last two weeks, we've made our way over to the South Towne Expo Center for the Festival of Trees and the Elves Gift Show, respectively. I love the Festival of Trees; there's always so much color and creativity, and there's always at least one Harry Potter themed tree. Oh, and it's all for a good cause; Primary Children's Hospital kept my brother alive growing up, so depending on how much you like my brother that's either really heroic, or a dangerous liability. At any rate, the trees did not disappoint (but might I take this moment to comment that there were far too many Ute themed trees this year).

I had never attended the Elves Gift Show before, but I found a two for one deal, so we decided to give it a whirl. It wasn't as spectacular as I expected, but it provided for some cutie tootie photo ops, as follows:

The main reason we decided to go to the Elves Gift Show was to take the Babydoll to see Santa. She is quite taken with "Sanna" ever since she saw him from afar at the Festival of Trees. We thought she'd be overcome with joy at the opportunity to meet him. Well, she was overcome, but not so much with joy. This is as close as she'd get before melting down and screaming:

And yet, she was content to watch him from afar for a good portion of the evening.

Luckily, the Babes was less hysterical at our ward Christmas breakfast when Santa made an appearance, and she was gracious enough to sit on his lap for a photo, though her generosity did not extend so far as to smile.

So Christmas really is coming to our house. We welcome and embrace it, at least on Saturdays when Daddy isn't too busy with finals to come home from the library.