A Hodgepodge of Holidays

December was pretty busy and I didn't get around to recording as much as I probably should have.  I suppose I will just do some of the highlights at this point.


The first event of interest that happened was Gerrit and my birthdays and the celebrations we had as a result. I went to babysit for Gerrit and Elisabeth to go out on his birthday. This ended up being mostly a sneaky plot for a joint birthday party. Elisabeth made a delicious peanut butter, chocolate, pretzel cake for the occasion. She really would make a great caterer or something, but that could of course be quite stressful on top of caring for her own children and teaching and everything!

The next day, on my actual birthday, my roommates put together a few nice things for me, like the "Happy Birthday" banner, some cupcakes, and a vase of flowers. That was a nice surprise. When my birthday falls on Sunday, it is always the day of the First Presidency Christmas Devotional, so it was nice to enjoy that along with fast and testimony meeting at church.

Competitors in the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest at work

On Monday, my coworkers did a little celebration at work. We all had peppermint ice cream, which is my favorite. They gave me some movie tickets and vouchers as a gift. I'm not a big fan of most movies in general these days, since they mostly seem like they are designed to be visually impressive without much care for a good plot, but I will save those up for something interesting that might come along in the future.

The week after my birthday, I decided that I wanted to go up to the Draper Temple and see the Tree of Life display in a park in Draper afterwards. I am quite fond of the Draper Temple, but I don't get there much for some reason even though it is the second-closest to me. Unfortunately, thanks to some terrible traffic, it didn't end up being very close at all on the Friday I went.  Pretty much I-15 is always fairly terrible near point of the mountain for some reason, but this day was literally the worst I've ever seen it. It was backed up for many miles in that area and traffic was at a dead stop.  To indicate the extent of that, I and many others around me just turned off our cars after sitting completely still for about 20 minutes after a period of stop-and-go traffic, during which period, the car in front of me rear-ended the car in front of them before my eyes. The parking lot scene lasted for a solid hour and a half. Apparently there was some kind of big accident up near Thanksgiving Point.

As a result of this awful traffic, I didn't get to the temple until much later than I had planned. It was about half-an-hour until the next session, but it was already basically entirely filled. They were planning to release some seats reserved for those attending with people taking out their endowments in a few minutes when I got there, so I was just waiting along with a couple who came before me. Shortly thereafter, about 8 more people arrived to do a session behind us. At that point, with about 20 minutes still to spare, I decided it would be best for me to just go do sealings and open up a seat for someone behind me on the session.

I haven't done sealings since I went to Brigham City close to a year ago, so it was nice to have that opportunity. The truth is while I love sealings, going to do them by yourself isn't the most fun thing in the world in some ways. There's always a bit of the 3rd wheel feeling being there with several couples. I can somewhat  useful still as a daughter, but I also realize that my role could easily be filled by one of the other women who brought along a useful husband. Nothing quite makes you feel more single, and somewhat superfluous, than doing sealings with a group of married people! Still, I've learned to deal with these realities. Though I'm not especially needed for a sealing session most of the time, I need them in my life periodically. They are a good reminder that there is a lot more to life and eternity than I currently have experience with. That then serves as a good motivator for me to try to push myself more to qualify for those blessings.

Tree of Life with Draper Temple in the background

After the temple, I made the trek down to Draper Park to see the "Tree of Life," as it has been dubbed. It really is a beautiful thing. Basically, it's a tree specially laden with $30,000 dollars of lights by a team of 3 people over several weeks. The result is quite spectacular. It really is reminiscent of the Tree of Life, and especially so to me, having just come from the temple. Many other trees in the park are also decorated, so it was very worth going to see. It was a bit cold, but I still had a great time going to see it.

The next week, I decided that I really wanted to go see the lights on Temple Square and attend the Salt Lake Temple during the Christmas season. Accordingly, I went up to Salt Lake. After a trip to the Trader Joe's there, I went and did a session in the temple. I will always love the live sessions there, so it's nice now that I live relatively close to go up and have that experience periodically.

One thing I noticed there that I haven't really thought about before is that as you come down from the Celestial Room to go to the dressing rooms, there are two complimentary pictures on either side of the hall depicting Jerusalem. I first noticed them because they are in the same unique style, and look very similar, so much so I mistakenly thought they were the same at first. It was only with carefully looking at them that I realized they were similar, related pictures on the same theme.

When I was in the Timpanogos Temple this week, I noticed that right at the exit of the Celestial Room, you get the same phenomenon. There are two complimentary landscape pictures on either wall in that temple. This made me reflect on having seen a similar set-up in Salt Lake. To me this is more than just a simple coincidence. As you leave the Celestial Room on the way back to the world, if you will. To me, this is a visual representation of a Celestial couple. In the eternal order, a sealed husband and wife should similarly compliment each other. They should in essence be two separate reflections of the same eternal scene (or goal) which are extensions of each other, while also bringing their own unique  perspective. These two complimentary figures, appropriately facing each other, should be forged in the temple and leave that holy place carrying this sanctified relationship with them as they return to daily life together.  I hope that someday I will find someone whom I can come to compliment in this way. I plan to look for these kinds of pictures in other temples as well in the future to see how widespread this effect is.

Fortunately, when I got out of the temple, it was already pretty dark, so the lights were at full glory. There were certainly many thousands of people there at the time. The whole square was teeming with folks. Everything was, of course, gorgeous. I was able to catch one of the nativity presentations and even a nice choir performance in the Assembly Hall. I also loved walking along some of the nicely decorated, though deserted side walkways along the side of the main stretch. These little lanes were more subdued with just some lanterns hung or some luminaries, but these forsaken ways gave me some extra time to linger and reflect on the temple, Christmas, and the Savior. It was more of an all day affair going up to Salt Lake, but a trip that was certainly very rewarding for me.

Miles is making a trash angel in the after-Christmas-morning refuse!

For both Christmas and New Year's, I spent time with Gerrit and Elisabeth's family. It was fun seeing the kids open their gifts and have fun with them. I got a nice cactus garden and such myself. Along with my own gifts, I also brought Marinda's stuff from the Philippines for the family. The most notable present there was a coin purse she'd gotten for Miles made out of half of a real frog. This was endlessly hilarious to all of us. It actually is one of the most interesting things she brought back honestly. I guess the full frog would have been more expensive, according to her, so they will have to make the dead half-frog suffice. This unusual gift is made all the more memorable by the fact that Elisabeth is actually afraid of/just doesn't like anything involving taxidermy!

For both Christmas and New Year's we played some games. There was a new one for the kids we played with them a number of times and though there were no new adult games given this Christmas, I was introduced to Settler's of Zarahemla and Dominion on New Year's. The funny thing is that I actually gave them that game for Christmas a few years ago, but this was the first time I've ever played it myself! It really was quite fun. I have a bit of a thing about not necessarily wanting to learn new games, but I was glad that I did this time. I can't entirely explain this reticence on my part, but mostly I think I don't entirely enjoy spending recreational time working hard to understand and master complicated games. I don't really mind picking up a new one if it's pretty straightforward, but it takes too much effort in my opinion to pick up something with a lot of rules or concepts to remember. In the end, despite my reluctance, I'm usually happy enough that I learned a new game as long as it's a fun one. Can't say I'm a master of either of these ones I recently learned, but hopefully I'll build off what I know now for future rounds.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable December with plenty of holidays to celebrate. I was very grateful for the opportunities to attend the temple and the invitation to spend time with Gerrit and Elisabeth's family. I learned some good things and enjoyed getting to focus on the things that matter most to me.