Countdown to Christmas

Friday afternoon we attended the Brownie Girl Scout Christmas party. While I was very sad to miss the KIPP festivities which were scheduled for the same time, it was wonderful to see how proud both girls were of the patches that they had earned this fall with the Brownies. Wendy had earned more than 10 patches and badges between the meetings and community service activities, and Fer had earned 4 because of volunteering with Wendy on some of the weekend activities. Fer will earn more badges from her activities with her Juniors troop in January when they have their ceremony.

On Saturday we headed up to Tivoli -- and I forgot my recipes for all the cooking I intended to do to get ready for the holidays! So, I wrapped presents instead while Chris played with the girls. It was so wonderful to hear the sound of them all laughing and having fun while I wrapped and organized upstairs, the girls under strict orders not to come into our room. Then, we met up with Gigi and Grandad and went over to Clermont State Park to see the decorations at the old house. The theme was "The Night Before Christmas" and they had excerpts from the poem in each room, and even more exciting, hidden mice! (Stuffed ones.) The girls were so excited to find the mice -- 14 in all -- and Wendy especially enjoyed reading the poem as we went though the rooms.

This morning was the Christmas pageant at St. John's. The girls were angels, Chris was Shepherd #2, and I was the mama dog -- not a character you may remember from the story, but this was the Animals' Christmas, a somewhat beast-centric reinterpretation. As it happened, the children all wanted to be the traditional parts of angels, shepherds, kings, so it ironically ended up with almost all the animal parts (dog, cat, cow, duck, owl, and so on) played by the parents! But it was a lot of fun and the singing was great. Afterwards, there were lots of goodies and snacks for the kids, and we even got started on selling our Girl Scout cookies.





Then we had our final Advent lunch with Gigi and Grandad -- thanks to Gigi, I haven't had to worry about an Advent wreath because it's happened that we've been able to have a meal with them each Sunday of Advent. After a lovely time and a chance to skype with Hugo and Leidy in California, we headed home, where the big excitement awaited of opening presents from KIPPTias Alaina and Blanca. The girls were thrilled with their gifts, and immediately wanted to play with them. With our house the pre-Christmas chaos that it is, we prevailed on them to wait to make jewelry til we go on vacation, but we all joined in for Twister, which Fer won and then Trouble, won by Wendy. I think a re-match will be in order soon!