Christmas

The night before Christmas, we went to a friends "little" Christmas party were Santa showed up with a giant sack filled with toys for everyone there, with their names on each toy. It was quite impressive. I commented to Jack that it seemed pretty cool that Santa had a gift with his name on it and he looked at me (like I was crazy) and said, " Momma, it's Santa, of course he knows my name." Silly me. After we went home we read the Christmas story from Luke 2 and the kids put out cookies and soy milk for Santa (Brian told the kids that Santa has really taken a liking to soy milk lately). So off they went to bed as fast as I have ever seen - we told them Santa only comes when kids are sleeping. They were asleep within minutes. Too bad Santa can't come every night.

We had a wonderful Christmas together! We were by ourselves this year as we are in the middle of a beautiful nowhere. Friends and family were missed, but we had a lovely day in our cozy home. The kids did not get up until 8, which was nice and then we spent most of the day opening a gazillion presents and playing with each in between the opening. It was quite a day. We had some delicious cinnamon buns made by a good friend of ours. And then ate a delicious meal prepared by yours truly. It was pretty yummy, if I do say so myself!!!

I must say that my biggest sadness of this Christmas was not having our annual Christmas Story Party with our dearest friends. Brian and I watched it together and had in on in the background most of the day, but it was not the same with out Grandpa Ralph and his little figurines and Uncle Dan and Cindy and Beedi and Grandma Polly, the Spinales and the Henn clan. Jack got this cool Joke telling thing for Christmas and is quite enthralled with it, above is one of his new Jokes. Molly doesn't quite have the hang of the joke telling, but she is not afraid to give it a whirl.

At the end of the day we started to wind down and chill out after the days big events. The kids began singing for the camera and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share with all.

Jack learned at school this year about all different ways people celebrate around this season, including Kwanzaa, Jewish, and Christian traditions. It was pretty cool. And being like his grandpa Jim, he LOVES languages!

Okay, this last little song is Molly singing Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer. Molly is very into reindeer right now. She either pretends to be one or pretends that the deer in our meadow are reindeer. It is cute!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and have an excellent New Year.