Twas the week(s) before Christmas

Well, I accomplished my goal of getting this post about pre-Chrismas fun done before we took the tree down. We SHOULD take the tree down since Christmas is five days past. The beauty of a fake one is that we could leave it up all year without it dying and dropping parts all over the floor if we wanted to. Amelia asked if we could.

I almost didn't get Christmas cards done this year. It's such an effort to get everyone dressed up for a picture. We happened to already all be dressed up at Amory and Blake's wedding though, so we borrowed the Christmas tree at the reception and took some pictures. This was the best of the bunch. Elizabeth was hungry and grumpy.

It's always nice to get Christmas cards from folks, especially if they're photo cards. I've considered not doing them anymore since most folks keep up with us online anyway. We'll see how I'm feeling about it next year.

We had fun the weeks before Christmas. The kids and I made some Christmas ornaments. Nothing is ever as easy as it looks like it's going to be in the magazine article. They turned out cute though.



We hauled out the tree and got it decorated the first week of December. The tree stood lightless and garlandless for a day or two while I worked up the motivation to put it all on so the kids could work on the rest. They love this part of Christmas.

The kids unloaded the boxes.



They put most of the ornaments on by themselves.



Elizabeth was a lot of help moving them around, mostly OFF the tree. She finally mostly left them alone after a few days.

There are a lot of things I've had to let go after having so many kids, like some of my housekeeping standards, need for vehicular cleanliness, etc. It was let them go or go nuts trying to maintain them. I've yet to be able to shake the need for evenly spaced ornaments on a Christmas tree however, so after everyone was in bed I rearranged a bit.

The finished product.

Stockings hung by the chimney with care. Actually, with hooks.

A random picture I took that week because bed head can be funny.

Except to the bed head wearer.

Another random picture. Because Shannon hasn't shown an interest in drawing or coloring for very long I'm always surprised when he draws something.

Loaders and dozers.

Elizabeth likes art. And the occasional crayon, though we've all tried to convince her they aren't tasty.

The first week in December our church had its Christmas production, which consists of a Saturday performance, two Sunday performances, and four nights of a dinner theater. We went to the Saturday evening one so there was no reason to go to church on Sunday. Amelia had gone home with the Davidsons, and they met us at the bowling alley/skating rink after lunch.

We had taken the kids bowling once before when I was pregnant with Elizabeth. About one game is as long as their attention span lasts right now, but they had fun.











Amelia and Ruthie

Go Daddy!

With ball ramps and gutter bumpers the kids were very competetive. They scored better than we did most frames.



Maggie

Stylin' shoes. A kid I went to high school with wore bowling alley shoes every day. Wear cruddy shoes into the bowling alley, leave with cool (sort of) new ones. If you can get past the fact that's it's stealing and that you have a bowling alley's name and your shoe size printed real big on your feet, it could be a good way to go I guess.

Next we tried skating, something not attempted in our family before. Amelia really started to get the hang of it by the end and begged to come back later in the week for more practice.

Our kids were the only ones in the skating rink with bicycle helmets on. No parent likes to be the over-protective looking dork, but more than one said it was a great idea. I'm okay with looking like a dork. I've had a lot of practice.

Shannon persevered but fell a lot. One or two more practice times and he'll probably have it. At one point he looked at me and said, "I'm not sure this is the best idea." What, strapping eight wheels to your feet? Probably NOT the best idea anyone ever came up with.

Because they gave us skate rental for free we did let Avery try it- but it was ridiculous, so we took them off of him right away. He had no interest in falling and let us know loudly.

When James and I moved to Cleveland we hung out with the folks that owned the barn where I was keeping Taffy. We met them each week at the Rink N Roll for rollerblading fun. Since then my rollerblades have dry rotted and both bindings broke. James' were still in good shape so he dusted them off and brought them along. I had to use uncomfortable rental ones, but it was still fun. (Wonder what the girl in the background is thinking. "Oh no! That girl's gonna bulldoze into something for sure trying to skate backwards like that!")

Before Christmas we also made a gingerbread house. Actually the nice folks at the gingerbread house factory made it. We just decorated it.

We did mix up the icing though. Shannon decided to go with the gangsta look and wore that hat all day.









Elizabeth watched everybody else and then went and got her own clean whisk out of the drawer to lick. She missed the part where you stir icing with it first.

We did it!

In spite of my inner need for order and symmetry, they did stick the candy on by themselves. I just came up with the ideas and directed traffic when needed. And wielded the icing.

The week before Christmas we:
Had the Strong Rock year 'round staff over for dinner Monday evening.
Had friends from Camp Skyline days stop by for the night Tuesday.
Had Thursday night dinner at Rebecca's on Wednesday. (Huh?)
Went to our Sunday School class Christmas party on Thursday.
Had the Strong Rock summer staff Christmas party on Friday.
Took Saturday off from partying.
Went to the D's for dinner and Rock Band on Sunday.
Went to a Christmas potluck for homeschooling families from our church Monday evening.
Packed stuff Tuesday.
Headed to McDonough for four days on Wednesday.

Our Tuesday night guests were Lindsay and Morgan Myers, who were campers when we were on staff at Camp Skyline and became staffers as we were leaving. They are now respectable 25 year olds, soon to have more degrees than James and I put together. Morgan is in school in Ohio, and Lindsay is in school in Pennsylvania, and both were on their way home to Florida for the holidays. It was great to see them and catch up on the last almost decade.

Wednesday night at Rebecca's most of us worked on gingerbread houses after dinner. We thought it would be fun to have a contest but we all ended up taking too long with it.

Sara and little Ansley, born in October.

Anne and Nikki assembling a house.

Anne, Amanda, and Rebecca

Turns out Amanda has a hidden gingerbread house decorating talent.

Our second gingerbread house of the season. The next morning Shannon looked at the two together and said, "Hey, we have a neighborhood!"

Friday was the Strong Rock summer staff Christmas party. Staff from several summers attended, and it was a lot of fun catching up with everyone. We played a game with wrapping paper where each team had to come up with a scene describing a Christmas movie.

Here's Mary and Baby Jesus.

It's The Little Drummer Boy. (Truthfully I don't remember this being a movie. Was it?)

The Grinch. The guy laying on his back is the Roast Beast.

Cindy Lou Who

No Christmas party is complete without a white elephant gift exchange, and no gift exchange is complete without a giant Dr. Pepper pillow.

Cornhole will be the new summer hit at camp. It's a beanbag game, rather cornbag game, and if you don't think it's a big deal you can Google it and find 1,210,000 entries (I tried it), containing rules, game specifics, places to order cornhole boards, etc. Rick made two sets for us and this one stayed busy all evening long.

Sunday I got to go riding with Mali and Abby (summer staffers) and in spite of it being VERY COLD, had a blast. My winter riding hasn't gone like I had hoped. I thought once the time changed I would be good to go again with morning rides, but this time of year it doesn't get good and light until 7:20, and I have to be done and home by 8:00. This has also been a particularly cold and rainy winter, so that doesn't help either. So I feed, turn out, and leave, but am still grateful for time at the barn.

As we rode by the house James took a picture for me. Starbuck and Mali are on the left, Twister and Abby are on the right, and I'm on Reggie, my favorite midget horse. I didn't realize how small he really looked until I saw this picture. Good looking horses if I do say so myself.

I'm going to end this for now, and plan to post Christmas pictures soon. Like, sometime before next Christmas.

Happy New Year!