Christmas 2010

Last night we tried out services at a local church. The service was kind of cute, with the kids doing their pageant stuff, but then it got weird with some evangelical puppets. In any case, the kids looked adorable and we got to sing all of the good hymns.
When we got home we lit the luminaria and the house looked like this.
Sharon and the girls and Tom came over for Christmas Eve dinner. We ate lots of food and then there was gingerbread cake and lots of cookies. Tom read Santa Mouse to us.
After the kids went to bed we played games for a while, had some cocktails and some laughs and then before going to bed around 2AM the tree looked like this:
This morning it looked like this:
The kids poked around, trying to figure out which boxes had their names on them.
It looked like this outside:
Henry and Clara played with their little Bilibo seats that Santa left unwrapped.
They also checked out these wildlife puppets left by Santa Tom (shhhh!)
Full stockings!!
Henry had a dino-themed book in his stocking.
Clara got this beautiful sweater from Aunt Joyce. She enjoyed showing it to Franklin. He appreciated its design.
Franklin seemed to enjoy the whole morning, even though he didn't get a new Kong.
The kids were very slow-paced in their opening...playing with each toy or reading each book before moving on.
The big finale from Santa was a big roaring, stomping t-rex for Henry and a sweet, but also noise-making, elephant for Clara. They went head-to-head for a while. Clara is completely freaked out by the dinosaur. She was hiding behind my back.
Later, after some much-needed naps, we went to Grandma and Bampa's for dinner. Henry and Clara poked around the presents before we ate.
Later we opened a few gifts. Clara got a big dress-up box and Henry tried to help her out with the shoes.
Vivian got a new Bumbo seat from her parents, and enjoyed hanging out in it.
And, I apparently didn't get many good shots of Pete this year, but here's one of him listening to a singing Snoopy. Right now he has his headphones on and he's geeking out with a new Bitches Brew album/memorabilia gift from Liz and Van.
I was hoping for another Christmas game of Scrabble, but I may just have to go fall asleep. Merry Christmas!

Winter Celebrations

It may not be evident a few days from now, but each year we are trying harder and harder to make our celebrations more about each other and honoring traditions, and less about presents. Here are some of the things we've been doing....
We celebrated the first day of winter break with snowman pancakes.
We had a tea party and shared Christmas cookies with Anna and Sebastien.
Clara celebrated Grammie's arrival by donning a fancy new coat, hat and gloves (okay, so that was a gift).
We celebrated the Solstice with a lovely party at Sharon's. We made pomander balls.
And wrote wish sticks...
...which we threw in the fire.
We also made some ice bird-feeder/sun catchers, which are still trying to freeze. Photos of those to come. And we enjoyed Sharon's dapper holiday-dressed giraffes.
The kids celebrated the first day of winter and the lengthening of the days by making a snowman with Grammie.

And more baking, of course.
Grammie took charge of the traditional candy-cane cookies this year while Pete and I celebrated his time off work by running some last-minute errands together and having a nice lunch.
Here's hoping your winter days are just as filled with warmth as ours!

Nice List

Today we've done a little shopping, a little baking, a little Christmas movie watching, and the kids have just written new letters to Santa.

Winter Sing

Henry had his Winter Sing this morning. He was very handsome and very proud.
I like this picture because I think it's when they were singing about gingerbread cookies and the lyric was "yummy yummy yum yum. In my little tum tum."
They also got to wave scarves around.
Here he is, walking out, trying not to make eye contact with me and also trying not to break out into a huge smile.
And I hardly even teared up at all!! I was a little proud of myself for holding it together.

Snippets

Henry has a new hole in his mouth. Pete told him he could now sing "All I Want For Christmas Is My One Front Tooth."
We have a Pac-Man tree ornament. Are you jealous?
Clara has lots and lots of hair. It is not always easy to manage. Some of you may need to brace yourselves for the reality of a hair-trimming in her future.
Henry loves to write. Sometimes he even keeps his tongue inside his mouth.

Style

Clara's sense of style is really blossoming this winter. She's a girl that loves layers. She enjoys dressing herself. The other day she wore 3 t-shirts at once.
Here's out Christmas tree all decorated. Last night the kids spent the night in Deerfield so that Pete and I could have an grown-up cocktail party. We didn't really manage to take any photos, but we had a good time!
Here we are waiting for our guests to arrive.
This morning we enjoyed sleeping in a bit and going out for breakfast. We just finished wrapping and hiding a few presents. I think Henry's starting to figure out that there are presents hidden in the house. I've caught him acting sneaky a few times. Now we have to get more sneaky about hiding them!

Christmas Tree Day

The snowy weather created the perfect mood for our planned Christmas Tree day! So we picked up Sharon and the girls, all managed to fit in the mini-van (!) and headed out onto the snowy roads to the Christmas tree farm. (Have I mentioned how nice it is to have Sharon and the girls back? It's so nice to have friends who are more like family in town.)
These photos are roughly in order. We were in the car for a while on the way up there because just as we got close we had to backtrack and detour due to an accident. So in this first photo Henry was asleep and Sinéad had just woken up.
These pictures are mostly from Sharon's camera. After finding a couple of lovely trees there was time for donuts, popcorn and some free hot chocolate! I was also mesmerized by the warning label on the tree shaking-machine (the Shakee). Henry wouldn't stop eating the snow. I hope he doesn't get any sort of weird illness from that. Mostly I think he'll just have chapped lips all winter. He can't keep his tongue in his mouth and Clara can't keep her mittens on her hands. Hopefully today (as I'm typing this at 3AM- awake due to a too-large meal for another friend's birthday) we'll get the tree and other decorations up. We might all pile into the car again tonight to go to a local lights display that we enjoyed together 2 years ago. That time we saw a light-up pooping reindeer and we all have high hopes of another sighting. Plus-it's a great excuse to drink more hot chocolate. I may need to get some peppernuts made first, though. I have lots to do! I should go back to bed.