Christmas Craziness…part 3…the end

The final Christmas post!  If you’re sick of the Christmas posts, don’t worry- I am too.  But one more…just one more!

First up… Christmas Eve

We always celebrate Christmas Eve with my family, beginning with a delicious dinner, then attending my favorite church service of the year- a candlelight service, and present opening to end the night.

Tommy was just a little bit excited about Christmas and Henry was more into eating Christmas goodies than opening presents.

This is the only picture that I have of myself during Christmas…so here it is, for better or for worse…

The famous poinsettia wrapping paper.  My dad is in charge of wrapping his own gifts.  He bought this paper on sale about 10 years ago and it is still around!  Little did I know that one of my favorite gifts was wrapped in this beautiful paper- a Kindle!

On Christmas morning, we woke up and took off to Canada to celebrate Christmas with Dan’s family.

We were both very excited to give this gift.  Can’t say that O loved it, but he was a good sport and modeled it for us.  Isn’t it adorable!? 

I was in charge of creating a scavenger hunt for people to find one of their gifts.  It took me a while to figure how to make a hunt for 7 adults without having it be too simple or ridiculous.  But, I found some cute clip art from lettering delights and put my creativity to work.

Clue #1- They had to unscramble the letters on the ornaments of the tree.

Clue #2- Each person had different clip art cut outs with letters to unscramble on them.

Clue #3- Each stocking hat had two letters on it- the letter for the word was the letter that comes between those two (confused?)

I had a good time watching people fly around the house and outside searching for their clues and presents.

 

We also celebrated Dan and his sister, Rachel’s birthday, shopped the Boxing Day sales, and played an intense game of Monopoly.

Dan’s high school friends live all over the place so it isn’t very often that everyone is able to get together…but there was one day that worked out for everyone.  It was great to see everyone!

It was indeed a merry Christmas!

Christmas Craziness…part 2

Before Christmas, I got together with some good girlfriends (I’m sure you’ll recognize them from previous posts!) and we had a little gift exchange. 

 

First, we had a yummy dinner.   Look at the cute table settings that Allyson had!  I love the mitten silverware holder and my K ornament!

Time to exchange gifts!

And of course a picture in front of the Christmas tree!

Only one more post about Christmas and then my sister’s New Year’s Eve wedding!  I’m almost caught up on my blogging- yay!

Christmas Craziness

Wow, I knew that I was behind on posting about Christmas, but I thought that I could quick whip up a post and move on.  I didn’t realize how many Christmas pictures and activities I had to write about. So here is the first installment of Christmas twenty-ten.

Christmas at school starts Dec. 1 and the excitement gets higher and higher the closer we get to Christmas.

To start, we always pick at least one present/book under the tree to read.  I’ve blogged about this before, so won’t go into detail, but it is always a fun!

The last week of school was c-r-a-z-y.  We had a snow day on Monday which was awesome but made the week wonderful, short and hectic.  We first had the joy of making gingerbread houses.  I say gingerbread houses, but really they are cardboard houses.  The boys were double layering theirs this year to see how much candy could possibly fit on their house.

And then we made Christmas gifts for parents.  We stuffed feathers, painted glitter and then glued on beads.  Oh the beads!  I always demonstrate every year.  “Use a dot of glue and then put a bead on, so there are polka-dots of beads around your ornament.”  And then, without fail, the globs of glue are put on and the beads are thrown on the ornament in no particular fashion.  I cringe and try not to let my controlling self come out.  Especially when they say that we are almost out of beads.  Of course we are almost out of beads!  You were only supposed to use about 20 and you have 200 on your ornament.  Anyways, they are done and wonderful and oh so fourth grade-ish.

The last week of school ended with my good friend, Stephanie’s wedding which was a great way to end it!  Steph and I started teaching at my school at the same time and instantly became friends.  She is kind, hilarious and has a great outlook on life.  She has now moved to Colorado and I miss her terribly!  Congrats, Steph and Jeff!

Part 2…coming up…