Pittsburgh Christmas

This year I was only able to spend a few days (Thursday to Wednesday) at home this year, but we were able to fit in most of my favorite Pittsburgh Christmas activities.

1. A Pittsburgh welcome: a Steeler and a patriot

2. 5 little stockings, homemade by my aunt

3. The back 40 in the snow

4. Downtown, or as Pittsburghers say it "downtahn"

5. Enjoying hot chocolate in the PPG building.

6. Every year they display gingerbread houses from schools and organizations all over Pittsburgh

7. St. Nicholas- the Santa Claus figure from Germany

8. St. Stephen from Ireland (these are our two favorite Santas. Maybe it's because we're Irish and German. That's my best guess)

9. Challah- a traditional Jewish bread that we use for French toast

10. Dad and Thunder hanging out

11. My handsome Grandpa

12. Our Christmas craft. We punched out circles from old Christmas cards and made them into a garland

For that Child so dear and gentle

He came down to earth from Heaven

Who is God and Lord of all

And His shelter was stable

And his cradle was a stall

With the poor and mean and lowly

Lived on earth the Savior holy

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas Memories- 2008

I think I peaked at this moment.

A Connor Christmas Part 2: Cathedral of Learning

One of the coolest things about Pittsburgh is the Cathedral of Learning at University of Pittsburgh. Each room is decorated like a different country. We wanted to take a guided tour of all of the rooms, but the lady at the front desk was a little frazzled trying to deal with the 1) old women trying to buy cat figurines 2) the homeless man sitting on the bench in the front hall 3) families trying to take the guided tour of all the rooms. We decided to wing it on the third floor without the guided tour.

The Ukraine room:






The Welsh room:






My personal favorite, the Austrian room:





A quick stop for mirror pics, which brings me to my next point. Pretty much all of these pictures (the good ones at least) were taken by my amazing sister. She's good.

The Israel room:




The India room:




Hopefully we'll make a trip to the other levels soon. They have the lower levels all decorated for Christmas, it will be great.

A Connor Christmas Part 1: The Ornament Search

It's a Connor family tradition that every year we each get an ornament that's supposed to represent where we went or what we accomplished. This year we got in a bind because none of us had ornaments, so we went on a search.

First stop: A Thousand Villages, a free-trade store in Squirrel Hill. They had gifts and ornaments from Bangledesh, Israel, China, everywhere.

A whole nativity made out of books.

Really adorable cats from China.

We found two ornaments there, but they can't be revealed till Christmas Eve, of course. 

Santa and St. Nicholas

Disclaimer: I had a very happy childhood and I loved Christmas growing up. My happiness has not been diminished in any way by what I'm about to say. 

So growing up my parents didn't teach us about Santa Claus. We didn't leave out cookies, we didn't write letters, nothing. What was their reasoning you ask?

They thought that if we found out they were lying about Santa we would think they were lying about Jesus.

It makes sense if you think about it. However, I have yet to meet a kid whose testimony was shaken by the realization that their parents lied to them for eight or so years about the existence of a man in a red suit.

I knew who Santa was, but for as long as I can remember there was always an older kid around to cast doubt on any budding belief I had in the guy. So when a female relative who shall remain nameless pulled me aside and offered to tell me the truth about Santa and where babies came from, I found the latter a little harder to believe. (A couple years later my mom gave me round 2 of "the talk" and I kept quiet to see if the stories matched up. They did.)

I did, however, have a magical period where I believed in St. Nicholas. The St. Nicholas celebration is a German tradition where children leave their shoes outside on the night of December 5 and St. Nicholas fills them with candy and toys.

This year St. Nicholas came to me, Alex and the brothers. 

Ryan thought that if he put out bigger shoes then St. Nicholas would fill them to the top with candy. But St. Nicholas saw straight through that crap.

Joyful, All Ye Nations Rise

This is my favorite Christmas song. I memorized all the words when I was little, and the last verse is my favorite:

Hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings

Risen with healing in His wings

Mild he lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the songs of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Merry Christmas Darling

1. Don't you love those Pillsbury cookies? I miss when they used to be in the tube and you could cut them up. I made 48 of these babies and they were gone after a few minutes.
2. My people. And our Christmas tree.
3. My brothers that I love dearly

Check one thing off the Christmas bucket list.

Christmas Bucket List

Christmas Bucket List

• Christmas service at the Cathedral of the Madeleine
• Lights at Temple Square
• Lights at the Riverwoods
• Secret Santa exchange with the Kindred Spirits
• Christmas cookies and Grandma's famous hot chocolate
• Christmas movies (White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie Brown, It's a Wonderful Life, etc.)
• Angel tree
• Gingerbread houses
• St. Nicholas Day (December 6)
• Snowman/sledding
• Buy ugly sweaters
• Festival of Trees
• Skate at the Gallivan Center in SLC 
• Visit the La Bonne Vie candy story and Jou Jou toy store at The Grand America 

Am I missing anything?