Holiday Ambitions

This holiday season has been great.  I say this right before we celebrate G's birthday tomorrow and Christmas the next day...  Our homeschool group didn't meet this month and we had less obligations so we had more time to celebrate our own traditions.

We got up the 25 days clip board and filled the slots with exciting things like going to the carousel, and the car wash!  Then we got sick and wound up off on most days.  But we tried and succeeded in many fun things this season.  We made sugar cookies for the first time in at least a year.  It was even a pleasant experience for me, except for the fact that I ate a bunch of them...  I let each child come in and cut an entire pan of 3 shapes they chose.  Then I let them frost the ones they cut out much later in the evening.

Today we did a little caroling.  It was much less than I'd thought we would, but it was more than the zero caroling we have done in the last 4 years.

On Sunday we will go to church.  G will recite the 12th article of faith to pass off his Faith in God award.  We'll sing as a family, and M will play the piano.  Then if all goes according to plan, G will get ordained!

I made a few gifts this year.  I had pictures printed and sent a few letters this year. But mostly I appreciated that I am blessed with a very low threshold of Christmas compulsion.

This picture says it all.  See those lights?  Taped up with measuring tape masking tape my father in law gave us for Christmas last year.  See this awesome little boy?  He's got double ear infections.  See that ribbon around his neck?  It's his gold medal he got in his shoe from St. Nicholas (aka G who sneaked out during a round of hide and seek to fill shoes waiting on the porch, with golden treasures.  B wears it every day.  See this cookie house that is fabulously decorated, not falling apart, and on a holiday styrofoam plate that came with the house?  Oh yeah.  I made 6 of these houses, carefully cutting the pieces and setting them with white chocolate.  I also used white chocolate to glue it to the plate.  The frosting the kids used to stick the treats on was too runny.  But we did use a lot of colorful cereal and minimal candy.  I was really pleased with it.  So was B.

So was M.  M will fill the stockings this year.

In general I don't like a lot of holiday traditions.  I'm a scrooge.  But I am grateful for eager children willing to pick up the slack and bring magic for one another.