Christmas Past

It's probably about time I blogged about our Christmas, eh?  We've been busy cleaning up vomit and having a Harry Potter movie marathon (those two things are unrelated).  I feel like the sickness immediately following Christmas has become a part of our New Year's traditions.  I wonder if Pinterest can put a pretty spin on that one.

We spent the weeks leading up to Christmas pondering its true meaning and waiting patiently to open presents under the tree.  

Okay, no that didn't happen.  One can dream, though, can't one?

This year we bought a real tree for the first time, ever.  We picked one out and strapped it to the car and I may have shed a happy tear or two.  Years ago I decided that someday I would buy and extra Christmas tree and just drive around with it on my car all month, because seeing people with Christmas trees on top of their cars always makes me smile.  It would be my weird way of spreading Christmas cheer.  Here are my children sleeping under the tree.

I volunteered to help at Miles' kindergarten holiday party.  It was a multi-cultural celebration that included traditions from Christians, Jews, Mexicans, and Arendelle-zians.  (What's Christmas without Elsa and Olaf?)  Miles made me play the driedel game a lot this Christmas.

We spent a lot of time learning to be good audience members.  Harrison had his first orchestra concert!  Here he is telling me explicitly that I am not to take his picture.  We also attended a high school dance concert, a middle school/high school orchestra concert, and Hale Centre Theatre's production of "A Christmas Carol."  All were really well done and I'm so excited to be living in a land where the arts are so strongly supported.

The lack of cold and snow seemed to be a big deal to the kids, so I found a recipe for snow and let them play in it. 

They played in it for hours and no one froze.  Freezing is so overrated.

My kids granted my Christmas wish for a cheesy picture under the tree wearing matching jammies.  (I couldn't find these pj's in Harrison's size, so he got a bathrobe.)

The kids wanted to go to bed at 5pm on Christmas Eve.  Jeff didn't even get home from work until 6pm, so I told them we had to wait.  They hate waiting.