December went by in a whirlwind. So much to do in terms of holiday events and traditions, not to mention the usual work, school, play, and general life activities we usually engage in. Amazingly, we managed to fit most everything in - as well as a few new things that we had never tried.
One thing new we tried was going to Christmas at Duke Homestead. I did try a couple pictures, but the lack of light made it very hard
to capture things so I'll just use old fashioned words to tell you about
it! Hayden, Eliza and I took Grandma on a cold Friday evening. After waiting FOREVER (an hour and a half!), we were escorted by latern light back to Christmas in the 1870s on the Duke family farm. We saw traditional dancing, listened to the night before Christmas read by candlelight in front of a roaring fire, sang time-appropriate Christmas carols, and tasted hot cider and sugar cookies. Plus saw popcorn cooked over a campfire! Hayden fell in LOVE with the hot cider but all of us had a nice time.
As for old traditions, we pulled out fleecy snowman pajamas. Due to a recent score at a local resale shop, we had a set for each kid! (Plus one extra for someone in between E and M!) I'm not much of a matchy-matchy person but matching Christmas pajamas are pretty awesome.
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| say cheese! |
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| Christmas kisses!!! |
Another new thing we tried was getting Molly's haircut for the VERY
FIRST TIME. I was a bit hesitant b/c her hair was just so fabulously
awesome in it's messiness. But since she grew dreadlocks in a matter of
hours and was started to look like she had an outgrown mullet style, it
was time to get at least a little trim. Using a coupon (of course!), we
actually went to a kid-focused salon for this special occasion. She was a
bit nervous but did really well. She loved that she got a lollipop at
the end!
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| before. oh so lovely in it's shagginess. |
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| during. |
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| after! a very stylish side pony with bow! |
We revived a very old Sanford Christmas tradition of heading out to Jordan Lake Christmas tree farm to pick out our tree. We picked out a tree fairly quickly, and then had a great fun enjoying some hot mini-donuts as a reward. While we picked out a fraser fir from the NC mountains, we did roam all over the farm, checking out the trees growing there. We played the "find a tree that's your size" game and everybody won! We even got a family picture, since Grandma and Popop were there picking out their tree too!
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| our tree! |
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| got some hot cider with the donuts. H declared it NOT nearly as good as 1870s cider |
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| Molly sized! |
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| grumpy Hayden sized! (the trip wasn't all gum drops and candy canes.) |
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| Eliza sized! |
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| Mommy sized! |
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| daddy sized! |
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| family photo! |
Despite some soggy weather, we were able to keep up our streak of Parkwood Christmas parade attendance too! The original day got rained out, but the next weekend was beautiful. I took full advantage of making the girls wear the festive headware. And the kids loved snagging candy that was tossed to them, while watching the parade go by.
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| so photogenic this one! |
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| Christmas cheer! |
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| just drinking and waiting. always good to be hydrated! |
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| at one point, M got so entranced, her waver broke. She kept her hand up, but was so busy watching she forgot to wave. |
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| E had the opposite problem. She just kept waving and waving and waving.... |
Another cheeeseball tradition was going to the holiday concert at preschool. Each class sang a different song on their own, and then everyone joined together for two finale songs. Molly did a great job singing "it's a small world" and she continues to sing it often! Eliza got Feliz Navidad and shook her maracas bueno! (yes I know that is probably not grammatically correct.) Then we party hopped between classrooms, sampling all the yummy treats! (On a related note, we also continued the Christmas tradition of baking TONS of treats that were then handed out to teachers and co-workers. Leftovers were happily consumed by us!)
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| it's a small world.... |
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| step and shake! |
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| Christmas cuties in matching dresses |
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| snacks from M's class - they made most of them! |
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| COOOOOOKKIIIEEEEEEEEESSSS |
Finally, one NEW tradition was may have started was hosting a holiday movie party. We made some themed treats (of course!) and watched Arthur Christmas. FYI, Arthur Christmas is NOT about Arthur the Aardvark (yes, he's an aardvark, not an anteater - we checked.) And while I can't say I watched all of Arthur Christmas (it's from the Wallace and Gromit people), it was entertaining enough at the beginning that ALL the adults somehow managed to find themselves standing and watching the movie, even though the kids were fully entertained and needed no more adult intervention. We did manage to pull our grownup selves away and have a lovely grownup conversation, interrupted only by the occasional child who wanted another reindeer or Santa hat to munch on.
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| Santa hats |
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| cupcake Christmas tree! |
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| pretzel chip peanut butter/nutella reindeer |
And THAT'S what we were doing (plus all the regular stuff, plus receiving packages from Amazon Prime) that kept me from blogging... Next up, Christmas and more!
