20 December 2010

Lots of fun and funny Christmas joy at our house tonight. We had a half hour tickle fight on the living room floor. There are advantages to having no furniture in the living room.

Our Christmas tree is bursting with amazon.com boxes. Hopefully when we open them on Christmas morning we'll be able to match them with the right giver to send the appropriate thank you note. The amazon smiley-face is the must have for this year, I suppose. We have such generous friends.

Mr. Brown watched kids for a friend today, and left a partly opened box from a friend (in Texas, you know who you are!) in the living room while he carried on a very long conversation with a friend in need on the front porch. Four kids five and under, relatively unsupervised. When he came back inside, he discovered that they had emptied the styrofoam peanuts from the box and shredded them into bits and bits all over the living room. (Proving once again that no good deed goes unpunished.) Another advantage to having no furniture in the living room - easier to clean up.

Rose Pink this evening was playing with putting things in her stocking and then 'discovering' what Santa had left for her. She said, "Oh look! A kazoo! And a little car! And a bloody knuckle!" Morbid, yes, that's our daughter. (The bloody knuckle was a piece of styrofoam she'd colored red and green a few days ago.)

13 Dec 2010

We settled down to watch some tv on Saturday afternoon with a plate of Christmas cookies, and Rose Pink said, "There's only one jumjill! Somebody better take it or else I'm going to eat it!!" Jumjills are favorites at our house. Nut Brown said, "I'll take it!" and he did. Rose Pink was exceedingly indignant.

cookies

Mr. Brown and I and our good friend Tiffany had a baking orgy and made all our Christmas cookies for plates. We carefully plated and wrapped almost twenty plates of cookies (I told you it was an orgy) and then Mr. Brown got sick, so instead of distributing them as planned, we have been eating them ourselves, one plate at a time. :) The cookies are very, very good.

hippopotamus for Christmas

Megan- it's Christmas in Detroit. We heard the 'hippopotamus for Christmas' song on the radio the other day. It's a funny song so I turned it up and afterwards I asked Rose Pink what she would do if she got a hippopotamus for Christmas. I wish I could have captured the look of total stupefaction on her face as she replied, "I'd...I'd...I'd give it to the ZOO! I don't WANT a hippopotamus for Christmas!"

caroling party pics

Christmas prep

Nut Brown disappeared for awhile while we were putting up Christmas decorations. He was inside the tree box.

reindeer

Rudolph comes in through the children's bedroom window and leaves a trail of nuts across the room and down the stairs to the Christmas tree. Making the trail this year (I hope my kids don't read this for several more years) I put a couple nuts on top of the dresser that's under the window and then made the trail across the floor. Rose Pink came up to me that afternoon and said, "Mom, I KNOW Rudolph came in my window." Oh? I said. How do you know? "Because," she said, "he left nuts on top of the dresser!"

It was a sweet magical moment.

Christmas

Some of my favorite moments from our Christmas: --the fact that Mr. Brown & I couldn't fall asleep because we were so excited about our kids' excitement the next morning

--hearing Nut Brown wake up Rose Pink the next morning and say, "Socks! Downstairs!"

--the fact that Nut Brown's first instinct on finding a trail of almonds left by Rudolph from their bedroom window down the stairs to the tree was to pick them up and put them in a basket

--Rose Pink's squeal of delight upon opening Santa's gift of a mermaid barbie

--Nut Brown conscientiously hanging the tag from his gift from the three kings on the front door as if it were a Christmas card

--Mr. Brown's enormous smile when he realized that he had received a great big monitor for his xbox for Christmas

--Nut Brown flourishing the cape that Grandma sent and exclaiming, "I'm Batman!"

--my sister-in-law's thoughtful gift of a corn butterer

--the tremendous amount of love that I felt from everyone who prepared gifts for our family, and the amazing love I felt for all of you who sent evidence of affection

Happy Christmas!

caroling

Last Tuesday night we had a caroling party. We decided that we would "carol for cans" and ask the people that we visited to donate a can for the food bank. It turned out to be the coldest night of the winter so far- temps in the single digits Fahrenheit- but a few brave souls turned up and we sang to houses in the neighborhood across from our townhouse. The guests also brought cans, and we collected about fifty cans altogether for the food bank. I have photos of our stacks of cans, and the sign we carried so people would know we were collecting cans, but I haven't gotten around to uploading them, so you'll have to do without. The kids LOVED it. We sang hymns and popular songs, and they sang along with us. Rose Pink took turns with her friend Layton holding the sign at people's doors, and one couple invited us in and gave us cookies. We had such a good time altogether that I think we'll try to make it an annual tradition!