12/16/07

Christmas Time Is Here

Kirby and I are not known for our Christmas spirit. Nicki listens to my complain about hating Christmas starting in October (when I hear the Christmas coming through the phone from her house). We try to put on a good show for the kids...but it isn't always easy. We both get so stressed this time of year.

The kid's holiday performance was postponed this week due to a snow storm (I think it snowed EVERY day this week). It was actually an answer to a prayer. Andrew had been sick and wouldn't have been able to make it and he would have been SO disappointed! He woke up at 10:30pm on Tuesday crying, "I'm sick, I HAVE TO get better for my play". I told him that his teachers had heard he was sick and postponed it so he could be there when he was better :). The only down fall of the postponement is that Auntie Andrea can't make it now.

This weekend was FULL of Christmas!

Friday we made salt dough ornaments. We baked them that night and planned on painting them the next day. I am not a crafty mommy. The mess drives me crazy...Andrew isn't great with things that require use of fine motor skills so he lasts all of two seconds...Zachary is SO quick about everything that is it hardly worth the mess we make for him to take a minute or two to do it. However, I bit the bullet and we did it. We had a great time. It was messy (but easily cleaned up) and each of the boys made a few ornaments.

Yesterday was our annual Breakfast with Santa. It is such a fun day - stressful but fun! The kids get to eat junk (munchkins and cereal with sugar as the number one ingredient), make an ornament and then wit in line (for usually about an hour) to sit with Santa, have their picture taken and get a goodie bag. They love it! It is inexpensive and they really do have a great time, so it has become a yearly tradition for us.

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After breakfast we stopped by Ocean State Job Lots to grab a few gifts for a needy family my sister is helping this year. Oh boy - were the boys full of "gimmies" and "I wants"! No matter how I prepare them before hand, they seem to forget the second we walk through the door. Zachary was able to get a couple things for his Christmas gift (we trade names with my family so they each have one person to buy for) and he was happy about that. I was able to get some acrylic paints for the ornaments (very inexpensive - so worth it).

We got home and painted a few ornaments, I realized that we needed some sort of lacquer to go over it to protect them. Besides that we needed to grab a couple more things for the family we are buying gifts for and drop them with my sister. So we went down to Rochester, into WalMart (more "gimmies") grabbed the lacquer and gifts, dropped some money in the Salvation Army bucket and went to my sister's.

I was very impressed with Zachary...I had $20 in cash, all but $1 was spent in the store. He "needed" a drink but he was asked which was more important, to buy a bottled water (when he could get a drink at "Grum's" 2 minutes down the road) or to help people that didn't have much. He chose the latter and dropped the money in the bucket.

Today was a heck of a day. We hadn't gotten the tree out yet (we have a fake) and there was about 3 feet of snow in front of the basement door. We finally got it up here to put it together (really, is a fake tree easier than a real?) - took us about an hour. It took us even longer to arrange the house as it is our first year here. After we FINALLY got the living room in working order Kirby accidentally snapped the tree...some duct tape and a little adjusting and "viola" it looks perfect :) Is that "white trash"? A tree held together with duct tape? Probably...ah well...

We decorated, the kids had a great time. This year was Andrew's year to put the angel on top (much to Zachy's dismay). He thought that was great!

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All in all, it was a great weekend. Despite my hate for Christmas I do need to remember that it is an important time of year for the kids. It doesn't have to be so commercialized if we don't teach it that way. It is about our family and friends and our traditions. Though we are in a new home now, our traditions remain the same.

2 comments:

Jessi said...

Did Zachary and Andrew try to eat the salt dough ornament batter? Nicki and I did as kids, and boy oh boy, we never did that again ;)

Crazy Momma said...

Thankfully not! It was quiet amazing, actually as Andrew eats most anything.

I tried it as a kid too...yuck!