Tacky looking stockings

Matt and I started our Christmas stocking tradition when we were first married and going to school at USU in Logan and it continues on. Each year we get another little trinket to decorate our stockings. Some years the trinkets have a little special meaning, and other years it was just for decoration. Kelsey asked me a few days ago "Mom, my stocking decorations will never catch up with yours will they?" I said "No, not until I die and you can add more to yours." She didn't like that answer.

This year the trinket I am going to sew on to all 4 of our stockings (we all get the same trinket each year) on Christmas Eve is a little bell. They are super cute bells and they have a little meaning to them - noise. This is the year that Kendal has been able to make noise, good noise, talking noise. She has come so far this year and we are grateful for her speech progress. She can get her point made pretty well now and it is nice we can communicate more and more. Just tonight she said to me "top it mama, top it." I asked her "What do you want me to stop?" as I was rubbing her foot. She pulled a face and pushed my hand away from her foot, then gave me a kiss so I wouldn't feel so badly.

It is fun to look at our stockings and remember a certain year. Like 1999, the year we fished. We have a fish button for that year. We fished 3 times a week all summer and ice fished like crazy all winter. There is a red maple leaf for 1998 when we visited Canada and lived in Corvallis, OR where the maple trees are GORGEOUS in the fall. There is a gingerbread house for 2002, which is when we bought and moved into our home here in Heber City. 2001's trinket is what looks like a rolled up gold tin funnel. This is from when we lived in Cortez, CO and loved to watch the Ute and Navajo Indians dance for us in the town square on Friday nights. Many of the girls wore these tins on their dancing dresses. Most of our trinkets do have meaning because we have so much to be grateful for and great things that happen to our little family.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope you are able to enjoy it with people you love and make some great memories. Please remember the little baby Jesus that was laid in a manger by a loving mother and father and that is the reason we all get to celebrate this wonderful time of year.