Our finest gifts we bring

About 2 weeks ago I stumbled upon a concert by the band "for King and Country" on Youtube. I'm sure I've heard their music before, but this was the first time I really noticed this band.  

The concert starts out with the song "Little Drummer Boy."  I kind of hate this song. The classic version of this song is so old sounding and most people who sing the "Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum Pum" parts over emphasis them to the point of being beyond obnoxious.  

I do like the David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet of Peace on Earth/ Little Drummer Boy. But in that song the Little Drummer Boy part is just in the back ground so I don't even really consider it a version of Little Drummer Boy. 

The for King and Country version of the song completely changed my opinion of Little Drummer Boy.  For one, they heavily feature actual drums.  Yes, they still sing the Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum Pums, but the drums do most of the heavy lifting in the song. 

The whole song is modernized and joyful. I found myself paying attention to the non Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum Pum lyrics of the song for the first time in probably ever.  And the lyrics stopped me in my tracks. 

Come they told me
A new born king to see
Our finest gifts we bring
To lay before the king
So to honor him
When we come

Little baby
I am a poor boy too
I have no gift to bring
That's fit to give our king

Shall I play for you?

Mary nodded
The ox and lamb kept time

I played my drum for him
I played my best for him

Then he smiled at me
Me and my drum

This little drummer boy offered as his finest gift the little thing that he knew how to do. He did his best. And it was accepted. 

And I found that very comforting as I entered the last two weeks before Christmas. I just kept doing the little things that I knew how to do and I knew they would somehow turn out to be my finest gifts. 

Here's the song if you want to here it.  And I've given you the full hour of the concert because the whole thing is pretty great. (The for King and Country's version of Oh Come, oh Come Emanuel might be my favorite version too.)

So what have the little things been the last few weeks?  Let's recap. 

First up is making sugar cookies.  These are the cookies it took us over a week to get around to making. Brandon made the dough before church on the Sunday December 12. Then it chilled in the fridge and we cut out shapes that evening. I'd been kind of thinking that maybe we'd give some of these cookies away.  But that plan was quickly cancelled when Veronica coughed on all the dough and dropped her first shape on the floor.  Nope these were going to be just for us. 

On Monday night we decorated the cookies.  We had tubes of frosting and lots of little things to decorate with. The kids did lots of cute stuff. 

I think Charlotte made this Rudolph sweater cookie. 

This is one Derrick did. I was really impressed by how involved he was this year.  He was so willing to do everything and did it mostly by himself.  I think he knew that the more frosting and the more candy he piled on his cookies the more he'd have to eat later. 

Here's some of my cookies. 

Another group photo.  I had the for King and Country concert playing in the other room so the kids could hear it too.  (I was a little obsessed for a while.)

Here's about half of the cookies. 

A Santa one that I *think* Veronica did.  But I could be wrong. 

More cookies. 

And all of them together. This was such a fun activity.  In other years we've done Gingerbread houses. But this was good enough for this year. 

On Tuesday we woke up to a huge windstorm battering our house.  My first thought was of the set for the Living Nativity. We were going to participate in the Living Nativity that weekend.  We'd picked up our costumes on Friday night. The little buildings for the set had already been put in place.  I knew that in previous years the Stable had sustained some damage from windstorms.  I also knew that they'd just finished rethatching the roof.  

So soon after I woke up I sent Britt a text.  I wrote, "Let me know if you need any help putting the set back together after all this wind. Brandon's great at fixing things."

Later in the day she wrote back saying that she felt like I was looking in her bedroom window and had seen her worrying about the wind. She said that two of the little shop stalls had fallen over.  Her husband had been able to sort of stabilize one before going to work, but that the other one needed to be put back together.  

I told her Brandon would be there right after work. (And yes, Brandon agreed to all this.)

 

I took this picture a few days later, but this is a tree that fell over in the windstorm. It was such a crazy windstorm.

The wind signaled a change in the weather and it snowed while the kids were in school. Here they are walking home. 

Since I had my camera out I took a picture of the wreaths that Brandon hung on our windows on Saturday. 

This was the first snowfall of the season. So when we got inside I pulled the boxes with the winter gear out of the closet. I handed out the snowpants and boots.  I'd bought Lydia new snowpant-overalls when I went thrift shopping with my sisters on Black Friday. She was excited to try them on.  I also got out the boots.  Charlotte had outgrown her old boots and I'd given them away at the end of the winter.  She did NOT like the new boots that I'd found in her size at the clothing swap.  They were too babyish.  She refused to wear them. I told her that was fine, but that she'd have to wait until my next payday before I'd buy her new ones. 

Lydia and Veronica all went outside to play in the snow. I'd told them that there wasn't enough snow to make a Snowman, but they proved me wrong. 

Derrick and I went to his boys activity at the church.  When we came back home there was a snowman and a snow dog standing in the front yard. 

Brandon came home from work a little before 4:00 and he and Charlotte headed over to Britt's house to put the market stall back together. They were there until around 6:00. They were able to get the stall mostly back together, but it was too big for Brandon to lift so he had to leave it on the ground.  

Britt later told me how grateful she was for Brandon. Her husband Mitch had a lot of other things to take care of that evening and he would have been out there after dark trying to put the stall back together in the cold and the dark.  She said he would have been out there until Midnight. 

Charlotte was so cold when they got back. Her tennis shoes were completely soaked and she was shivering like crazy. Brandon made her a big mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream in it.  I decided she needed new boots for the Living Nativity because her tennis shoes were not going to cut it. 

Wednesday was a big dentist day. Normally I take the kids to the dentist all at once. And that had been the plan for this day as well.  I'd scheduled all the kids for right after school.  But a few months ago Charlotte and Lydia joined STEAM club and it had meetings after school on Wednesdays. So I'd moved their dentist appts to Wednesday morning. 

Charlotte and Lydia were happy to sleep in for about 30 extra minutes on Wednesday morning. Brandon walked Derrick and Veronica to school and I stayed home with the twins. We all got ready and I took them to the dentist. 

The appt went much faster with just two kids. We were in and out of there in 40 minutes.  And no one had cavities. We stopped at my friend Liz's house to pick up the PTO presents for the teachers at the elementary school.  Liz had done a great job of getting all the gifts ready, and she was looking forward to handing them out.  But then she got sick.  So I had to pick them up and deliver them. 

I dropped the girls off at school and then went to work for a while. 

In the afternoon I picked Derrick and Veronica up from school about 15 minutes before school ended.  We went to their dentist appt.  Neither of them had cavities either.  Whew!  Veronica had filled out a tooth brushing chart and she turned it in for a prize.  The prize was a shirt, a lanyard, Chapstick, and and a coupon to Orange Leaf.  She was so excited!

Brandon had been meaning to get his COVID booster for a while, but hadn't had time to schedule it.  So I told him I'd schedule it for him.  I'd had mine done a week earlier at Fred Meyers.  When I scheduled Brandon's I saw that the Smith's by our house was now able to do boosters.  That made it super easy for him to just run over there after work. 

Brandon's really sensitive to vaccines. He always gets weak and sore. So we always try to schedule them for the weekends.  But with the Living Nativity this weekend I figured it was just better to do it ASAP so he could be sick and then feel better by the weekend. So I scheduled it for Wednesday evening. 

(Meanwhile, my body handles vaccines really well.  I didn't have any side effects from my booster.)

I didn't have anything planned for Thursday morning so I texted Britt to see if she needed help with anything on Thursday morning to help get things ready for the Living Nativity that night. After a couple back and forth texts I told her I'd just show up at 9:00 and do what ever she needed me to do.  

On Thursday morning we woke up to about 3 inches of snow.  This is a lot of snow for Twin Falls so we were all pretty excited. The kids got ready for school so fast.  Here they are playing in the snow before we walked to the school. You can see Brandon in the back ground shoveling our neighbors driveway. He'd already shoveled ours. He was so sore from the vaccine, but he did all that shoveling anyway. 

Everyone had a fun time in the snow. Then we all walked to school.  Brandon and I walk the kids to school every day.  We do this mostly for Derrick.  I need to know that he made it to school okay. But I love the little conversations we have with the kids on the way. It's some of my favorite times with the kids.  

Britt had texted me and told me that it would be really helpful if I could dust off the props that were on the Living Nativity Set.  But only if I really wanted too.  I replied back and told her I'd love to. I tried to explain that I literally had nothing else to do because I was out of school for the first time in 6 months. But I don't think anyone understands the concept of a mom that's not loosing her mind in December. 

I drove over to Britt's around 9:00.  Some of the roads hadn't been cleared yet and it was a little slippery.  I still had the teacher gifts in the back of my car.  I was thinking, "If anyone rear ends me, I'm going to be so upset."  But I made it there safely. 

Britt had put out many of the props then day before and now they were all covered in about 3 inches of snow.  I went around and dusted off everything.  It was so much fun!  There were so many beautiful props and I felt like I was on a little treasure hunt as I dusted everything off. 

Here are a few of the sets.  This is my family's spot.  The fish booth. 

These are the rugs for sale next to us. 

I even dusted off all these props that still needed to be set on tables. 

I went into in the pasture to check on the stable.  It was in good shape, but the Wisemen tent needed snow pushed off the top. 

All in all I was there for about 90 minutes. I was so happy I was able to do that. 

When I was done at the nativity set I drove over to Walmart to buy a few things.  Charlotte needed boots (she'd refused the "baby" boots again that morning) and we all needed new gloves.  

Then I went to work. I really wish work was more exciting to write about.  I LOVE my job, but none of it is really story worthy. It's just I processed this payment, and tracked down that check, and called this insurance, and kept all the financial stuff running. It's fun in the moment, but not really worth talking about afterward. 

While I was at work the sun came out and the snow started melting.  I was so happy to know that the props on the set wouldn't end up in puddles of melting water. 

I went over to the elementary school about 20 minutes before school let out.  I brought the boxes of teacher appreciation gifts into the school and set them out on a table in the library. 

Look how cute these gifts are.  Liz had taken care of ordering the mugs with the school logo on them. Then we'd got together with some other moms to fill them with candy and put them  in the bags. 

Its all possible because of Liz's vision.  I felt bad that she wasn't there to get all the credit for how cute the mugs were. I made sure to tell as many people as possible that this was thanks to the PTO president - not me. 

The kids walked home while I was at the school.  By the time I got home Charlotte had already found her new boots.  They were plain black and she LOVED them. 

Veronica showed me her "Verb Village" project.  She and I had worked on the first part of this together.  It had been pretty complicated.  She'd had to think of a theme.  She'd picked the North Pole. Then we had to think of nouns that would be at the North Pole.  We had to list 10 of them.  Then we'd had to think of what those nouns would be doing.  So she wrote things like, Mrs Claus is cleaning. Santa is checking his list. The sleigh is standing still. ect.  Then she'd had to draw a little picture of everything she'd listed. 

She took all that to school and then drew a big picture based on her little picture.  She was really proud of how it turned out. 

Brandon came home from work after a long day of driving all over the valley in the rickety work truck.  His poor, sore body had been jostled and jolted all day. He went into our room and took a nap for an hour. 

The kids and I had a quick dinner and then started getting into costumes. When we did this two years ago I'd had someone else wrap my head at Britt's house.  But this year Britt asked us all to learn to do our own head wraps.  I'd watched a Youtube and tried it out.  I was surprised at how easy it actually was. But I wasn't too happy with my costume.  It wasn't doing anything to flatter my figure.  I felt like I was just the fat wife of a fisherman. 

Everyone else looked great in their costumes and when we were all together I wasn't as self conscious. Here we are at the set. 

Derrick refused to get dressed in his costume.  (Which really shouldn't have surprised me since he hadn't even wanted to dress up for Halloween this year.) So we just brought his costume along in case he wanted to change into it later.  He never did.  He spent most of the night playing in the snow. 

Here are Charlotte and Lydia with a plate of fish.  Britt had asked us if we wanted a different role this year, but the girls were really looking forward to being the fisherman family again so that's what we did. 

Here's Veronica with a net prop.  Two years ago she'd been pretty miserable on the one night she did this.  But this year she had a lot of fun.  I discovered that she's actually pretty good with props.  She'd pick up the fake fish and shake them around like they were still alive.  She was so funny. 

We needed to be on set between 5:45 and 6:00, but the visitors weren't allowed in until 6:30.  That half hour before we officially start is my favorite part.  Everyone gets to their booths and starts getting in to character. Characters start walking around and interacting.  Its a really special time. 

During that time I noticed someone with a fancy camera walking around and taking pictures.  I figured he was Drew Nash, the photographer for the Times-News. So when he went by us I sent Veronica over to the rugs to have her beat them while he took her picture. I was happy to see this picture in the newspaper's online photo gallery the next day. I think my favorite part of the picture is one of the twins in the background looking like, "Hey, what's going on over there?"

Brandon got a fish cooking on the fire. This was apparently revolutionary when he did it two years ago, and so Britt wanted him to do it again. He would spend the night offering fish to everyone that walked by. 

Here's Veronica holding some of the fake fish. 

The adults in the cast are all assigned specific roles, but the kids are mostly left up to their own devices.  They run around, play games, and just basically act like kids have acted throughout time.  For some reason the fish booth is a fun place for the kids to hang out. Brandon usually ends up with 4 or 5 extra helpers hanging out. Here's one of our friends from the ward helping cut up a fish. I took this picture for her mom. 

I spent a lot of the night keeping track of Derrick.  He liked playing in the snow, but he also wanted to wander.  So we walked all around the set many times.  We walked over to see Baby Jesus in the stable.  We walked up and down the sidewalk where guests lined up. We stood by the fire.  We spent time lighting some candles.  We were kind of an anachronistic duo.  Me in my poncho and head wrap and him in his blue coat. But I don't think it bothered anyone. 

I loved hearing all the sounds of the market place.  You'd hear people saying things like, "Bread, for Sale. Baked Fresh this morning."  Or little children saying things like, "Would you like to buy a basket?"

There was a sandal shop near our fish stand and that guy had funny things to say.  All night long he'd say things like, "Best time of year to buy sandals.  HUGE discounts."  or "Guaranteed to make the rest of your body feel warmer." I laughed every time I walked by. 

When guests came in they were given a little coin that they had to hold onto.  It was supposed to be for when they got to the tax collector table, but they usually were given it back as a sort of souvenir.  Somehow the kids in the cast figured out they could beg for the coins.  We had a big iron pot at our booth and some of the kids were hoarding their money in the pot.  I think we had something like 30 coins in the pot. The kids also figured out that they could use the money to buy things at some of the stalls.  So at some point they "bought" sliced bread from the bread stall. They discovered that it was sour dough bread and they didn't like that so I ended up eating the bread that had been bought on this underground black market that was developing. 

Brandon was having a great time. He did a middle eastern accent and always got laughs with the funny things he'd say.  Two years ago he'd been the only one selling fish, but this year there was another man walking around selling fish heads.  When guests would walk by and Brandon would offer them fish they would say "Well I already bought some from the fish head guy."  Brandon would give some pitch about how his fish was better because it was a full fish. 

At some point, the fish head man walked by and Brandon saw him.  Brandon immediately said, "You!  You have been stealing my business all night!"  And he started chasing the guy.  The guy ran off, but Brandon caught up to him.  Then they had a noisy argument that one of the Roman Centurions had to break up. It was hilarious.  What made it even funnier is this whole thing happened while the crowds were thin. Brandon and the other people weren't preforming for anyone.  They were just having fun in their roles. 

At the end of the night Brandon and the fish head guy talked together while they walked to their cars.  The fish head guy was named Ivan.  When they got to the parking area they discovered that Ivan was parked directly in front of us. Brandon yelled out in his fish man accent, "What you park in front of me too!"  Ivan busted up laughing. 

We came home and changed out of our clothes.  Our house was a mess. We had costumes and snow gear all over the living room and kitchen. I had to wash a few of the things that had been extra muddy or had hot chocolate spilled on them. But it had all been worth it.  

Friday was the last day of school for the kids.  It was a short day and the kids could wear their pajamas so it was an easy day to get ready for. 

Brandon has decided to take Friday off of work so he was home. I think he and I just went back to bed and took a long nap in anticipation for the next two weeks of having kids home. 

Eventually I went to work.  Brandon took care of picking the kids up from school.  

When I got home a package had arrived.  It was an Advent Wreath I'd ordered.  I laughed when I saw the box it was shipped in.  This company obviously did not care about discrete shipping. 

Here's the Advent Wreath.  It's supposed to have three purple candles and one pink one, but those had been sold out.  So I just bought white ones.  The kids were SUPER curious about the wreath and I told them we'd do stuff with it on Sunday. 

That night we had another night at the Living Nativity.  Derrick was NOT very happy when he found out we were going back. This was the night that someone with a camera would be filming for a little music video. So we had to be there by 6:00 again. 

I didn't get many pictures this night because we had the camera person filming, but here's a good spot for me to show you some of the details in Charlotte and Lydia's costumes.  This is the coloring on Charlotte's poncho. Orange is her favorite color.  I told her that this is probably something I would have made for her if we were really olden day people.  

She also had this beautiful head scarf. (She would not smile naturally.)

Lydia's dress had beautiful embroidery all over it. The dress was slightly too short for her, but she loved how pretty it was so we didn't switch it out.  I said, "Well I have four children to cloth, and we just didn't have the money to get Lydia a new dress this winter."

She also had a little white coat and a blue head scarf. 

She wore a hoody under her costume and the hood of the hoody was hidden under her head scarf.  It looked like her hair was really full under the scarf. 

Derrick kept wandering into the shots of the Christmas video so I told him to run and play in the snow in a part of the year that was kind of dark.  He disappeared for a while.  When the filming was over and the guests started coming in I went looking for Derrick. I couldn't find him anywhere! This was exactly like the time I lost him two years ago. But I actually wasn't that worried this time. He can talk so much better now and so I knew he could communicate with anyone who found him. 

But as time went on and I couldn't find him I started getting worried. I went back to the fish booth to see if anyone had seen him.  Thankfully he was there.  I asked him, "Where did you go?"  and he told me "In the house."  I should have realized that.  Two years ago we'd been in the house a lot because that's where the costumes had been.  Last time there had been a choir of Angels that switched out every half an hour.  The house had been a flurry of people changing in and out of angel costumes and Derrick, Veronica, and I had gone in there to get warm. This year when we'd talked about doing the Nativity I'd even told Derrick, "If you get lost, go to the house."

But when I'd told Derrick that I hadn't realized that the house wouldn't be as in use this year.  All the costumes had been moved to the barn.  There wasn't a choir of angels.  The house was dark and seemed to be off limits this year.  

Off limits to everyone but Derrick that is. 

I have no idea how long Derrick was in there but it was long enough to look at the Christmas tree, eye the stockings, admire the train set up under the tree, and have a whole conversation with Mitch.

Oh Derrick!

Derrick's hijinks didn't end there.  At one point we were standing by the fire outside the Wisemen tent.  Derrick dropped his glove in the fire.  I don't know if it was on purpose or on accident, but either way it melted instantly. 

Oh Derrick!

At another point we were standing by another fire and Derrick was running his boot along the metal fire ring.  He liked that the water on his boot was sizzle.  Well there was hole in the metal and Derrick got curious about what would happen to his boot if he stuck it in there.  Before I knew what was happening he had melted a huge hole in the toe of his boot.  

Oh Derrick!

After that we went back to the fish stall and sat on a bench.  My feet had been hurting all day and I was done walking around.  Plus Derrick couldn't really walk with that huge hole in his boot. 

The bench was nice, but when I sat there I didn't know I was inviting all my other kids to whine to me.  They told me their hands were so cold. I was considering leaving early and taking the biggest whiners home. But then one of the background helpers showed up with handwarmers. My kids have never used handwarmers before, so they were all in awe of these magic little bags of warmth.  The handwarmers got us through the last 30 minutes of the night. (Derrick ripped his and spilled it's contents everywhere.)

When we got home the house was once again a mess of costumes, winter clothes, and all sorts of other things.  

So the first thing we did on Saturday was get things cleaned up. The snow was mostly melted at this point so I was able to shove the snowpants into the closet. I moved the boots by the front door and that freed up space on the kitchen floor. It was nice to claim the house back. 

True to tradition we had NOTHING planned for the Saturday before Christmas.  The only thing on our calendar was the final night of the nativity. But that wasn't until 6:00. So the day was spend with little things.  

Brandon and I had bought 24 boxes of brownie mix to give out as neighbor gifts.  I hadn't really done anything with them yet and they'd been sitting on the counter since Wednesday.  Brandon took it upon himself to make a little card to go with the boxes and then he and Charlotte wrapped them in ribbon.  

Simple, but cute!  And so much easier than making a billion goodie plates. 

Veronica had asked me to teach her chess on Friday.  I'd told her the rules and played a practice game with her on Friday.  She wanted to play chess again on Saturday.  Here she is getting the pieces out.  We played two more times on Saturday and each time I helped her less.  She started seeing ways to attack me and actually caught me by surprise a few times.  I was still holding back a bit with her, but I was super impressed by how fast she leaned the game.  Now she says chess is her favorite game. 

Eventually it was evening and time to get back into our costumes.  I'd finally figured out my head wrap to make it less of a turban and more of a head scarf.  Each night I'd been comparing myself to the other women in the cast. Even in a costume I still felt self conscious of what I was wearing. I felt like everyone else had cuter clothes or better looking head wraps. I half jokingly said, "I don't know how to dress right in any century."

But I felt like I finally got it right on this night. 

We decided to leave Derrick home this time.  After all his little hijinks the night before I figured he couldn't get into any worse mischief at home. Veronica had a cough so she decided to stay home too.  I thought about staying home with them, but I really wanted to be part of the fun of the market place one last time. I knew they'd be just fine watching movies all night. And they were. 

Charlotte, Lydia, Brandon and I went to the set one last night.  We parked at a neighbors house and then walked over.  Every night the set was already lit when we arrived.  I loved seeing the fire from the torches through the trees. 

The set was so cool.  They did a good job of engaging all your senses.  There was incense burning at each booth and people also walked around with incense. I noticed on my many walks with Derrick that we could smell the set from far away.  There was also a sound track of quiet drums and lutes playing the whole time.  Then there was the heat from the fires. 

I walked around taking pictures of many of the sets. This is the first booth you see when you walk in.  It's the one that Brandon fixed on Tuesday night. 

Here's the wool booth. 

Here's our fish spot. 

We loved this little spot. 

Here's the sandal shack.  

Here's actual cheese from the wine and cheese merchants. 

This is the bread merchant.  That's all real bread.

Here's a table with fruits and nuts.  This had been one of the hardest tables to brush the snow off of. 

While I was walkign around I ran into Britt for the first time. (I'd been off with Derrick every time she came by the fish booth.) She didn't have anyone to be in the sandal booth. I couldn't imagine the market place without someone telling all those silly jokes about sandals all night long.  So I volunteered to take over the booth.  She handed me some bells to ring while I was sitting there. 

I had a blast "selling" the sandals.  People laughed at the jokes all night long.  I wasn't as good at staying in character as Brandon was if people asked me questions I'd answer as myself and not as a merchant.  One lady asked me if the sandals really were from Bethelehem.  I told her, "Well I saw some bags that said made in china so I don't think so."

Charlotte and Lydia somehow ended up with a live chicken.  They would walk around and take turns holding it.  One would hold it and they'd walk in a big circle around the market.  When they made it to my booth they would switch who was holding it. 

I was surprised at how fast the evening went when I didn't have to worry about Derrick. It seemed like 2 hour only took about 40 minutes. 

Here's a picture I took of Lydia at the end of the night. 

Brandon and Ivan the fish head guy had been going at it again all night.  (Ivan hadn't been there on Friday. ) Brandon had been telling everyone that the fish head man told Lies and not to listen to him.  When Ivan walked by Brandon got in another argument and demanded that a centurion arrest him.  The centurion told him that they had arrested him, but he kept escaping. 

When it was all over Ivan and Brandon had a long conversation.  Ivan was like, "who are you? Do you do any other acting?"  Brandon told him that all his siblings had been in drama and in hindsight he should have been too. Ivan told Brandon that he was in the Magic Valley Reparatory Theater and invited Brandon to audition for an upcoming play.  So that might be happening in the future. 

Sunday was a nice and relaxing day.  The choir did there Christmas program at church and a tiny part of me was sad that I wasn't in it.  But mostly I was happy that I could just sit back and enjoy the program. 

In the evening we finally lit the Advent Wreath.  This is something I've wanted to do for several years, but I always kept forgetting to order a wreath before Advent started.  I forgot again this year, but a few weeks ago I decided that it was better to be late than never.   

We should have been lighting one candle every Sunday since Thanksgiving.  But this was the Fourth Week of Advent so we lit all four of them in order.  We talked about how Jesus brought Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.  The kids really liked this, but I think it was the fire that held their attention the most. 

We'll do the full thing next year. 

That night Brandon and I stayed up wrapping presents.  We listened to an episode of Baconsale where they ranked Christmas Treats. It was really fun. And I was so happy that we had all that wrapping done. (Brandon loves to wrap.  I just do my best.) 

On Monday the kids were out of school.  Also Brandon was home from work. After 18 months of near continuous work his work finally slowed down. He's taking work off until January. 

The kids and I drove around delivering neighbor gifts.  The kids LOVE doing this.  We've developed a tradition where they take turns running the gifts up to doors.  Then they run pell mell back to the car. 

They dive into the window and I drive off (slowly) while their feet still hang out the car window. 

It's hilarious. (Look carefully in the mirror and you can see Derrick's legs hanging out.)

I went to work and got a lot done there. I worked for 3 hours.  Each day I worked progressively less.  Tuesday I worked 2 hours.  Wednesday I worked about and hour, and Thursday I didn't go in at all.  Contrast that with the Treasurer's office where I December was the busiest month. 

On Monday night we did our tradition of "Christmas Under The Tree."  Normally we do this on the Friday night before Christmas, but we'd had the living nativity. So I'd moved it to Monday and then COMPLETELY forgot about it.  

Thankfully Branodn didn't forget.  He made lots of treats for it.  Including the most amazing orange rolls I have ever had.  These were exquisite.  So flaky.  So tangy. So fluffy.  

I'd bought the kids coordinating red pajama bottoms.  So they changed into those. 

I'd also bought robes for Brandon and I.  We wore those. 

Here's all the food. 

We always unwrap our new ornaments from Brandon's mom.  Here's this years.  Every ornament has the little elf, but he's holding something different on everyone's ornament. 

Brandon pulled up Poky's Christmas on his computer and we watched that. 

We'd started Christmas Under the tree at like 5:00 and we were all surprised when it was only 6:30 and we were out of things to do.  Charlotte wanted us to watch a little movie she'd seen in school. It's called "Prep and Landing" on Disney Plus.  It's about the elves that get things ready for Santa to arrive.  It was pretty cute.  

Around 8:00 we made beds for the kids in the living room so they could sleep under the tree. Or at least near it. 

Veronica got the couch. 

Derrick slept on the floor next to the tree. 

Charlotte slept in a box.  (That's a funny story.  She'd been writing a Christmas list at school and asked for a whole bunch of boxes.  Her teacher - who is also our across the street neighbor) read that and told Charlotte that they had a gift arrive in a huge box.  She would give it Charlotte. We came home one night and it was by our back door.  Charlotte immediately took it and put it on her bed and has been sleeping in it ever night.  Brandon calls it a coffin.)

Lydia got the air mattress, but some how I didn't have a picture of her on that. 

I spent a lot of the evening putting away my laundry.  I'd also washed all the costumes and they'd been drying all day.  I put them back together as ensembles and had them ready to give back.  My house just wasn't big enough to hang onto the costumes for long. 

Tuesday was a less busy day that Monday.  Derrick and I took the costumes back to the Britt's house.  When we got back Charlotte and Lydia were doing things with Wisker's cage to make it more fun. 

When I was at work Brandon went grocery shopping with some of the kids. 

That afternoon we had three friends drop off gifts within half an hour.  It was kind of amazing.  And after I took this picture another friend dropped off a box or oranges. 

That evening we went back to the Candy Cane House right when it started getting dark.  This was the winter solstice so it was the perfect night to go see lights.  We were able to get a front row seat and stayed there for an hour to watch all the different light displays set to music. The kids took turns sitting on my lap for a song.  Here's Charlotte.  

On Tuesday night my sisters Hillary and Emily had gone to see Spiderman No Way Home.  They had free tickets from their realtor. They both got on Marco Polo the next day and said what a fun movie it had been. This, combined with a favorable review from my brother Billy last week, made me think that maybe I should go see this movie soon. 

I grew up watching the Spider man cartoon on Saturday mornings.  I loved it so much.  When the first movie was announced when I was a teenager I couldn't believe it. I still remember watching the trailer for that first movie.  My friend Joel had downloaded from the internet somehow (I don't really know how it worked back then) and put it to his palm pilot so he could bring it to school for me to watch.   

I went and saw the movie with my first boyfriend. I saw the second movie with my second boy friend.  

And I saw the third one with Brandon.  That third movie was a dud though.  I was so burned by the disappointment with that movie that I never got my hopes up again. I never watched another SpiderMan movie in the theatre. 

In fact, there've been a few Spiderman Movies I never even bothered to watched.  I couldn't bring myself to watch the second Andrew Garfield Spiderman movie because I knew who died in it and I didn't want to go through that.  

And I haven't watched the second Tom Holland Spiderman either. I was pretty burned out by Marvel Movies by the time that one came out so I didn't care to watch it.  

I didn't let myself care about Spider Man No Way Home either.  Even when I saw the trailers. Even when I heard the rumors.  I just couldn't get my hopes up that it would be good. 

But when three of my siblings all said that movie was good I wanted to see it. And I wanted to see it before any of the surprises were ruined. So on Wednesday afternoon I pulled up the movie show times and then asked/told Brandon, "hey I want to see the Spiderman movie.  Do you want to go tonight at 9:30 when the kids are in bed?"  And he said yes.  

The rest of what we did on Wednesday is not important at all because watching Spiderman that night was one of the greatest joys of my life. It was wonderful to sit in a crowded movie theatre and clap, cheer, and gasp with many other Spiderman fans. 

I don't want to spoil anything for you.  But I will say what I said to Brandon, "It's like all the characters went to therapy!"

When it was all over I felt the way I had at the end of watching Rouge One. This movie filled a hole in my heart that I didn't even know I had. This movie succeeded on so many levels.  I was happy for the characters and I was happy for the people who had made the movie.  They'd pulled off the impossible.

 I had a smile plastered to my face for the next 24 hours. That Spiderman movie had been like an early Christmas gift. I felt so joyful. 

If you like Spiderman even a little bit, you need to go see this movie soon. 

And that brings us to the end of the pictures that I've uploaded.  I'll fill you in on Thursday in my next post.  

I hope you have a Merry Christmas. 

Thanks for reading!