We were in Nordstroms at Fashion Place Mall--Emilie, Jono, Annelise, Sophia, and I. I was taking the Ebert kids shopping to choose gifts with their $75 allotments from Grandma and Grandpa Spendlove. Six-year-old Sophia appeared with the desire of her heart--little black sandals with 1 1/2" high, curvy heels. I turned to Emilie and Jono. "You're my style consultants," I told them. Should I buy Sophia high heels?" "No!" they agreed. "She's not old enough." As we walked out of Nordstroms a few minutes later, 13-year-old Emilie ventured, "You know, Grandma, I think I'd like some shoes like the ones Sophia wanted." "What would your mother think of that?" I asked. "I want to keep her as my friend." "She'd be fine with it," Emilie assured me. We did find a pair of strappy black sandals with little, curvy high heels for Emilie. They were her very first pair!
We also found stylish gray "Toms" shoes for Annelise.
We found Nike sandals for Jono.
We spotted the very same Spiderman boots as Ezra used to wear everywhere. They were his very favorite thing.
Sophia chose a blue dress at Gymboree with a white snowflake on the front. Emilie and Jono, my style consultants, agreed it was perfectly acceptable.
Sophia also made a white bear at Build-a-Bear for her birthday present. Her 7th birthday is December 26.
We were exhausted after all the shopping. "My mom always says she gets tired shopping, but I never knew why until now," Emilie said. We stopped at the food court for pizza to give us the energy to get home.
Breakfast! Presents! We had it all, starting at 10 a.m. on December 25. Lisa and Michael cooked crepes, as Dave chopped fruit, fried bacon, made the hot chocolate and whipped cream, and hauled out the orange juice and Nutella. After all the worldly stuff, we attended Church together at 1 p.m. and, through music and an excellent talk by James Bradway, concentrated on the "gifts" the New Testament describes.
I was upstairs, with Jonny as my helper, furiously wrapping our worldly gifts. "This does not have economic utility, "Jonny protested. "You're using all this paper and ribbon to hide things that the grandchildren picked out themselves and will pull open in half an hour." "Christmas is not about utility," I replied.
After breakfast, we opened the presents.
My compilations of journal entries always draw interest, as the Spendlove kids check to see if I have exceeded my usual standard of reporting 90% of the events correctly, and being wildly, outrageously wrong on the other 10%!
Kyle checked his computer to verify a disputed Christmas fact.
We found a "To Santa" letter written by Alyssa: "From the Flindt home: I love you, Santa!"
Our children chose wonderful treats for Dave and me. There were photographs of Jonny and Jenny that Dave promptly hung on our wall; a gift certificate for our favorite restaurant, Market Street Broiler, from Michael, that we promptly used; a photobook of "Notable Quotables" from Kyle and Lisa, with cute pictures and sayings of their children over the years, which we promptly read and laughed over; and running gear for David and "cocotte" French baking dishes for me from Camille and Steve which will be very fun to use.
The Flindt kids picked their own unique gifts for Dave and me--a CD of romantic Christmas music from Michael K and a CD of "Built on a Rock" from Grant. "Built on a Rock" is the musical written by a woman in the Flindts' ward which Lisa's stake performed last fall. Its songs are now sung by BYU's Young Ambassadors.
Spencer chose a half dozen bottles of his favorite root beers and sodas from the shop where he works.
Kirsten put together a DVD about my life for a school heritage report. We played the DVD on our TV and my eyes welled up with tears to see the very positive way in which my granddaughter summed up my experiences.
