Glad Tidings and Stuff

Christmas is over and I am feeling a little sad about it. In the last couple days, I heard a few adults make comments to the tune of "Thank Goodness it's over" but I love the season. The hot chocolate, the wrapping, the movies, the anticipation. It's funny how we experience the same thing year after year and know what's coming but it's still exciting. This year we all got to watch Talitha enjoy her first Christmas. Unwrapping her birthday presents was a befuddling experience for her but by Christmas, she quickly realized the happiness that was awaiting her just beyond the wrapping paper. I watched her with joy with past month, knowing that the Author of her life was being introduced to her: that her Great Hope was being born in a manger.

Christmas Eve party - Soup and bread, chicken wings and crab legs, my sister's birthday, cake, and White Elephant presents. Oh and sock monkey hats.

This train table with a box of trains and tracks and bridges and stuff? $15 at a garage sale. It was Noah's gift but we seriously could've gotten it as a family gift and been set.  It is loved.

On the way to my parents' house. Toddlers out.

She is not amused.

We enjoyed Christmas morning at our house with Matt's parents. Matt and I got up early and made a fire and sat and drank warm things waiting for the kids. We opened presents and lit the Advent candles and had breakfast. Around noon we headed over to my parents' house for round 2.

One thing that makes me all squealy happy is that my parents and Matt's parents are friends. They've been friends since I was 6 and Matt was 9 and we lived on the same street in NY. I like the fact that holidays are happily shared now.

The couple days after Christmas the kids and I recovered. By that, of course, I mean that we watched movies and ate truffles.

Yesterday we went to my best friend's parents' party. It was, and I say this in all sincerity, a square dance. The barn was festively lit up and there was a chili cook-off and hay bales. Kate and I did the chicken dance and the electric slide. Matt, as per his usual, sat on the sidelines and tried to pretend the dancing wasn't happening. Jack got roped into the hokey pokey by his friend Will but by the time I ran back with my camera, he had figured out that he was about to be involved in a dance and walked off, disgustedly shaking his head. We had to leave early due to the fact that we brought both 2 year olds to an outside party in the dark with a bonfire and we are stupid. I told Matt that next year we'll get a sitter for the younger two, put on our cowboy boots and dance the night away. He nodded his assent but I'm pretty sure he wasn't really listening and this will be an issue next year.