Christmas Day in Fort Lauderdale Florida brought 81 degrees of heat. We had to open the windows and turn the air conditioner way up because the humidity was also very high. Not exactly the way we are used to.

We tried to find a soup kitchen that we could help serve at but no one would let us. They said we had to sign up and then take a training course to be able to do it. So we decided the next best thing to make our Christmas a good one was to have some Elders over for dinner. They are from L to R: Elder Holland (Sr Assistant to the Pes) from California, Elder Hunt from Las Vegas NV, Elder Evans (we were in the MTC with him) from Antioch CA, Elder MacDonald from Alberta Canada and then Tim.

We got up and opened a couple of packages we received for Christmas. It didn’t really feel like Christmas. Brian tried to connect with us on the webcam but it didn’t work so well. We could see them but they couldn’t see us. Josh called and put us on the webcam while Alex and Maxwell opened their gifts. Amber called while they were at the Taylors and decided to wait until evening to get on the webcam. It was fun to see Autumn and McKenzie. Canyon was asleep on the sofa. We called Jeremy’s family and got to talk to them on the phone. They were busy playing games. We missed being able to talk to Craig’s family because we don’t have a phone with long distance service. We have a beautiful family.
I spent most of the morning cleaning the house and doing laundry and getting dinner ready. We had Elders Holland, Hunt, Evans and MacDonald for Christmas dinner. We had cordon bleau, mashed potatoes & gravy, corn, salad and peppermint ice cream for dessert. About the time I thought they would arrive, I started cooking the gravy (chicken flavor). As I was doing it, Elder Holland called to say they might be bringing a new member by who was lonely. I decided I needed another package of gravy so I put it in but goofed and put 2 cups of water in for it instead of 1 and the gravy wouldn’t thicken. When I realized what I had done, I immediately threw it down the disposal and thought I would have to use brown gravy. When I looked in the cupboard, I only had 1 package for 7 people!!!! Fortunately Tim kept his head on and pulled some cream of chicken soup out of the cupboard. I remembered how good the gravy was that I made to go over pork chops. I immediately had hope again that we could pull through. I added some dried Lipton onion soup and it turned out great. We even had some left over. Thank goodness for Tim.
The Elders were supposed to be here at 4:00 so I mixed the dressing with the tossed salad. They didn’t show up until 4:30 so I was a little worried about soggy salad but I guess it was okay. I was glad when the meal was over. They seemed to enjoy it. At the end of the meal they asked if they could sing us a Christmas song. They sang Tim’s favorite, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day. It made me cry. It was a great Christmas day!

MERRY CHRISTMAS