Jan 10

Jan 10 Christmas 2019!

And How We Celebrated

Holidays tend to be stressful, no matter what you do. And we had been sick during the fall. So we planned a quiet Christmas at home this year. I found one of these ceramic trees at the thrift store—unpainted! So I started off Christmas Eve by painting it. Next year we might order the light pegs for it.

The kids wanted to help this year, so I gave them all different things to do. The girls and the dudes were sent out back with scissors to gather pine branches for a wreath. It’s the first year we’ve had a wreath, the first year we’ve made one from live branches, and the first time the girls made one. And they did it all with very little help from me. It has a lot of character. While they were doing that the older boys hung the stockings (the hall is the only place big enough to hang all of them) and decorated the tree. When they went to Mass I made the crackers; I had been printing little toys and collecting candy for weeks.

Half of the kids had fevers, so Nick took some to Christmas Eve Mass, and I went Christmas Day. They are growing so fast (I made his bow tie!).

Christmas Day was full of feasting and fun. I didn’t get very many pictures, I was too busy enjoying everything. We started with strawberry shortcake for breakfast, and we ended the day with pie.

The dudes got a slide from an aunt, and everyone had so much fun that they all sat peacefully together at the end!

These were some of the toys that I printed for the crackers. Minimus is really good at maths, and spent a while pouring over the drawings of Escher. So I thought this puzzle was appropriate. And it’s a lot of fun.

Nick got me a set of tattoo pens so I could experiment with designs before/if I decide to get a real one. Everyone wanted a temporary tattoo, of course. Maximus designed his own.