December Goings-On

I had to look back through my photos to jog my memory on our December activities thus far.  Here’s a recap of the highlights:

Snow.  Or lack thereof.

Little did we know back on November 29th that this lovely dusting of snow would be the most snow that we’d get before Christmas.  Although there are still 2 days until Christmas, the forecast is calling for sunny and 40 deg. for both the 24th and 25th.  I prefer snow, but I’ll take the sun in lieu of that.  ;-)

Birthday Dress-Up Fun.

Here are Erica and Courtney all dressed up for a 50’s-themed birthday party for cousin Kate.  They had great fun, as Kate and family had hatched an elaborate mystery for all the party-goers to solve.  It was a whodunit, with Kate’s favorite doll, “Mary Linda”, as the missing person. 

Advent Gifts.

For the past few years, Mick and I have given the kids a gift for each Sunday in Advent.  I try to find pjs for their first gift.  I looked and looked for some Christmas-y nightgowns.  It’s very hard to find (a) nightgowns and (b) nightgowns that don’t have some goofy cartoon character on them.  I was just about ready to give up (rather than spend $40 per nightgown on some decent ones I found online) when I happened into a Meijer and found these lovely red flannel nightgowns for about $7 apiece!  They are just what I had in mind. 

Happy 70th to Dad

Seriously?  I am not old enough to have a 70-year-old dad!!  But, that’s what the calendar says.  Yes, December 7, 1941 – our Pearl Harbor Day dad.  His birthday fell on a Wednesday and the four of us kids who live in Indiana and didn’t have to work spent a lovely afternoon sharing lunch and his favorite Mocha Layer Cake.  What do you give a dad who has given so much and means so much to his family?  His favorite gift:  our time (oh, and a couple of giant Hershey Special Darks). We love him dearly and I challenge anyone to find a more youthful 70-year-old.

Trent.

Trent continues to grow in chubbiness, cuteness and personality.  He’s inquisitive, a fast crawler, sensitive and perceptive.  And at 13.75 months, still not walking … which is, of course, fine by me.  :-)  He’ll get there.  He’s recently started pushing around his high chair, boxes, carts, etc. and discovered the joys of toilet paper.

He also has started making car sounds whenever he sees a toy car, which makes us all laugh.  I remember Grant doing that at an early age.  Boys are so funny!

The Christmas tree.

We made our annual trek out to Dull’s Tree Farm and found a very nice tree.  Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so I didn’t get the usual pictures of the tree-picking/cutting down.  It’s such a fantastic place to visit – we’re blessed to live so close.  Mick and I have been going there since before the kids were born, when the Dulls were just starting out.  The last couple of years, the farm has gotten quite a bit of good publicity (our secret is out!), so we have to get there early to find a decent tree.  To keep the tree fresh, we keep it in our cold garage for the first week or so.  For some reason, it’s hard to get the decorating momentum back if we don’t decorate the tree the day we bring it home.  But after spending many days in our living room, first with no lights, then with just lights, the kids did finally manage to put decorations on it.  Grant is most excited about the train that runs under it!

Rachel’s piano recitals.

We are so very proud of Rachel, who finished her first semester of piano lessons under the teaching of Mrs. Jeeyoon Kim.  She performed in 2 recitals, the first one on November 20th and the second one on December 10th.  For the second recital, she played Clementi’s Opus 47, No. 2, the first movement. When Ms. Kim first assigned the piece, she was doubtful she could learn it.  I think her exact words were “I’m supposed to play that?!”  :-)  But, not only did she learn it in a bit of a time crunch (she played three other songs for the November recital), but she performed very well in a packed recital hall.  Great job, Rachel!

Shopping til my fingers drop.

Except for a bit of Black Friday Christmas shopping the old-fashioned way, I continued my recent tradition of online shopping.  I did all the rest of my Christmas shopping in one night about 3 weeks into December.  Earlier this week, Courtney made some chocolate-covered pretzel rods, which were from a kit she received from Grandma and Grandpa.  (I’ll explain how this ties into my Christmas shopping momentarily.) They turned out very cute, and we even wrapped them in the individual wrappers that came with the kit. While Courtney was making the pretzels on Monday, I started receiving some of the gifts I’d ordered online.  We had 2 or 3 separate deliveries between about 9:00 a.m. and 8:30 p.m.  At some point, I thought of an idea I’d read several years ago about giving baked goodies to delivery people during the Christmas season, so we decided that might be a good way to use up some the 16 chocolate-covered pretzels.  We also decided to attach the scripture verse “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” to each pretzel rod.  The girls were pretty excited about this humble attempt at outreach and eagerly looked forward to the next delivery.  I had received notice that my items were being shipped separately, so I expected maybe 5 or 6 separate deliveries, plus a few deliveries for what Mick had ordered for me.  Around 8:30 that night, someone noticed the UPS truck pull up.  We weren’t expecting a delivery at that time of the night, so there was lots of excited screaming, shushing and mad scrambling for one of the pretzels.  I don’t know what the girls were more excited about:  the nearly half-dozen boxes of Christmas presents that were delivered, or our delivery of the chocolate-covered pretzel to the UPS driver.  :-)  The funny thing was, that first day we had 3 separate deliveries from 3 separate drivers. In the three following days, we have only had two deliveries -- and it’s been the same driver we gave the first chocolate pretzel to! :-D  So, now we have 15 individually-wrapped chocolate pretzel rods. <tee hee>

 

Things that we have no pictures of, but are noteworthy.

• Our van, which I mentioned last time was rear-ended, was very satisfactorily repaired.  Considering it cost our insurance company about $4,700, I expected nothing less.
• For the first time in our family, the stomach flu was confined to 1 person.  Poor Erica was the unfortunate victim.  She was hit just 13 days before Christmas.  In a desperate attempt to prevent cancelling Christmas (the last round took 9 days to hit everyone), we quarantined her in her room for 3 days.  The hall bathroom was off limits to everyone but her and her dishes were handled with hazardous-waste-type care.  After the first day, she felt much better and started getting bored, so I set her up with lots of good books and a portable TV with a VCR and lots of videos and home movies.  She alternated between reading and watching mostly home movies.  By the third day, we started getting a little more confident and the younger ones camped out just outside her bedroom and watched the home movies with her.  Wish I would’ve gotten a picture of that! 
• We have all been learning Handel’s “Hallelujah  Chorus”.  Our tiny church “choir” was considering attempting it for Christmas Day when our pianist suggested the whole congregation sing it.  I thought that was a terrific idea!  The church provided copies of the sheet music and we have been practicing it almost daily all week.  Last week after church, we had a practice session and I was impressed with the sound of the small group who stayed after to practice.  It is a challenging song, especially since I have not sung it before.  I love that we’re all learning it – the girls have been very enthusiastic learners, and even Grant has walked around singing the “hallelujahs”.  I’m looking forward to hearing how it sounds with the whole congregation.