Boxing Day

We celebrated all the Christmas things with the Elwoods on Boxing Day at my parents' house. It was a day full of food (tortellini and ham and salad and rolls), cousin time, music, presents, and games. It's always a lot of noisy fun when we're all together.

My dad gave my mom these kids bells a few years
ago and the kids always gravitate to them whenever
we're at my parents' house. (Sam was playing them by
himself earlier, but not photo was taken.)

Present time! We draw names among the siblings
and spouses and have a separate drawing for the
cousins. I had Nate and got him this painting of Beaver
Mountain that my friend Holly the Painter did as part of
her ski area series. I think he loved it. I know it's one of his
happy places. :)

Gregg had Kylie and got her a butter crock
since the last time she was at our house and used
ours she said, "whoever has me for Christmas can
get me one of these!"

Cal had Maggie and made her an apron
(as we do) and got her a book and a Bluey puzzle
(she's a big Bluey fan).

Sam had Zoe and picked out a Pete the Cat
book and the same Bluey Puzzle set.

And because I am that book aunt, I had the kids
pick books for all the rest of the cousins from
our stash.

Gregg got a bike pouch to carry an extra
tube on his mountain bike (plus an extra tube
to go in the pouch) from Terrell.

Sam got more minecraft legos from Grace.

Cal got a heating pad that Evelyn sewed
with her mom and Sam got a bonus assortment
of toys and things from Bradley just because.

Ky got me a cute little nativity that nestles
together like a puzzle.

And my parents got each family an adventure/experience.
We got gift cards for Boondocks - activity passes, arcade tokens, and food!

After presents we played the chimes, which is always
an entertaining time.

And then we had a little recital where many piano
and guitar solos were performed.

We had a reader's theatre with songs that my mom got from
the friend and it was fun to hear the kids read all the parts this year.

Grandma Great gave the girls these fun sequin
sticker kits and the boys got lego kits and they all
spread out on the table and played and crafted for a good
long while.

The sisters (plus Cal, eventually)
played a good game of Hokie Five and then
others joined us for a rousing game of Pit
to close out the evening.

Merry Christmas, Darlings

We started our Christmas morning dark and early! Sam was SO excited that he couldn't fall asleep the night before (till nearly 10:00, when normally he's out like a light at no later than 8:30) and then he was awake at 3:45 am! While Gregg and I sort of dozed a bit from then on, I don't think Sam ever really fell back asleep. He came into bed with us around 5:00 am and was so wiggly and tappy and hummy that we sent him back to bed. So much energy! Finally, after checking on Callie multiple times, we were all up and opening stockings and presents at 6:00.  By 7:45 the cinnamon rolls were baked and ready to eat (and Gregg had fallen asleep on the heat vent under the tree!). We had plenty of time to get ready for our 9:00 Sacrament Meeting, which was a lovely program by our choir. 

Then we came back home, prepped some food for dinner (ham, funeral potatoes, brussels sprouts) and took more naps.  We talked with grandparents, watched Star Wars, played new games, tried out new ice skates, and ate lots of treats.

LEGO Minecraft - Cal knew exactly what he'd love.

Santa knew, too! Minecraft stuffies in
stockings!

Sam fell asleep standing up and laying
over Gregg's legs during church.

New game alert - Cal got Mastermind
and took a few rounds to get the hang of it
before she started beating Dad.

Sam got new skates and was eager to give
them a try at the Huntsville rink.

bonus videos!

skating newbie

Christmas dinner. (I mostly take this pic
to remember what we ate ;)

 It was a marvelous, low-key, home-with-the-family Christmas and we loved every long minute of it!

Christmas Eve

We had a delightful Christmas Eve party with the Blanchards. Yummy spread of food, fun conversation and games, stockings full of goodies and new jammies for the kids. Can't beat that!

Only one more sleep till Christmas!

Christmas School

Starting the week after Thanksgiving, we jumped into Christmas School a la Read Aloud Revival. Four weeks focused on some of Jan Brett's classic Christmas (slash winter) picture books was just the perfect way to school through December. Not everything is pictured here, but we enjoyed The Mitten, The Wild Christmas Reindeer, The Hat, Christmas Trolls and The Night Before Christmas and plenty of learning and fun to fill the month! Here are the highlights (aka the things I thought to take pictures of):

A little Christmasy history one morning.

Our nature walk to find and study a coniferous tree was
lovely, but did not yield any conifers (I swear there was
at least one evergreen on our North Arm trail, but apparently
not!). So we enjoyed our snowy walk and then came home to
study the various pines and spruces and firs in our yard (and living room!).

Not really Christmas schooly, but math
was just regular math anyway, and both kids
had assignments to take a survey and then
graph their results. Here's Sam's data collection
about Minecraft preferences.

The Christmas school book club plans were for
Jan Brett's version of the mitten, which we love,
but this one is the one I grew up with and will always
hold a place in my heart.

The reindeer cookies they suggested to go with Wild Christmas
Reindeer didn't have great reviews, plus I wanted to my our fave gingersnaps
anyway, so I just combined the two ideas into these goofy (but delicious)
reindeer cookie treats.

Since most of Jan Brett's books that we were enjoying this month
had a Scandinavian influence, I found this book at the library
to help us learn a bit about the customs, history and traditions of
these Nordic countries. We read a few pages a day, and learned a lot!

Some great nonfiction with excellent pics to go along with our
reindeer studies.

And reindeer ornaments were a super fun
afternoon activity.

Sam wasn't into the crafting as much as Cal, but he
did humor me with this (antler-less) reindeer creation.

And he made this one to give to Zoe for Christmas.
(And then he was off playing or reading something else.)

Cal, on the other hand, loves the crafty life, and found lots
of different reindeer ornaments to make for lots of grandparents.
This afternoon of listening to classic Christmas songs while making
ornaments reminded me so much of growing up and doing the same thing
with my mom. When I shared that memory with her, she said she did the same
with her mom. Such a fun chain of memories for all of us.

These are part of a really great series we found at the library.
We mostly flipped through and looked at the pictures and read
a few interesting tidbits. We love chapter 10 which always has a game
and a recipe from the country, and we made a few of those.

We love latkes and these were a really delicious way
to celebrate what we learned about Ukraine.

I had no idea what to expect with these cookies.
I thought they'd be more like shortbread. But they were
soft and fluffy, like bread. Gregg called them a mix
between a pancake and a sugar cookie and they were really
tasty.

Making Norwegian Kringla.

We got creative with our shaping.

It’s always fun to read and look at different retellings
(and re-illustrations) of folk tales. Here’s a great collection, all wonderful.

When we read The Hat, we learned about hedgehogs.
They've become favorite animals of all of us.

This is a fun novel, not related to Jan Brett, but
set in Denmark so I figured it fit in nicely with all our
learning about Scandinavia. We still haven't finished it,
but it's been a fun read aloud this month.

Only a few of the very many versions of this story/poem we checked out at the library for our final week of Christmas School. I think my fave was Jan Brett tied with Roger Duvoisin (you may know him from Petunia). It was also fun to read a “biography” of Clement C. Moore’s experience of writing the poem. (But as we read in the author’s note from Matt Tavares, did he really write it?!) Cal loved the babies under the tree from Gyo Fujikawa. And Sam picked dinos as his fave.

Christmas school also happened to correspond with the
World Cup, so we spent a lot of lunch hours watching games.
One day Gregg pulled out the LEGO minifigs for a little lesson
demo on offsides.

Ah! Jolabokaflod! Thank you, Iceland, for this amazing
tradition! We spent the evening of Winter Solstice, our
last day of school for the year, snuggled up in our cozy spots,
lots of yummy cookies and popcorn to snack on, and new books
to open and read.

We even had the TV fireplace on to
add ambiance.

We read for two hours and it was simply delightful!
I think we'll keep this tradition around.