Feeling the Christmas Spirit!

Once our tree was up, I went to Sarah's to get the collection of presents that had been accumulating there since January!!

With my hearty collection of reusable bags, wrapping was actually very fast!  I only had to wrap a few presents with paper. 

And, as of today, the 23rd of December, I did not have to take any paper from the rolls!  We had enough left over from years past to wrap everything under the tree, and the few* wrapped gifts we gave away!  

Grace helped me assemble the Christmas cards this year!  It was a 2-in-1 card this year.  Last year I was late in making my card, and the sales had already ended.  I wasn't willing to pay full price for the cards, so I just waited until this year to mail out two in one! The backside of the picture below was the newsletter from last year.

I'm not sure why I was so late last year, since I had taken the time to type up each individual address to print onto Avery labels, so I was a bit sad to not use them.  Either way, it made mailing cards much quicker this year with printed labels for both outgoing and return addresses!!!

My kids dressed up for each day of spirit week.  It's such a rush for the big kids in the morning, that I don't have a chance to get a picture of them!

The twins are a little easier, because I can snap their pictures at school, on days that I'm working, which was the case on Artic animal day!

When I collected the Christmas gifts from Sarah's basement, I took the time to evaluate the remainder of what I have stored in her basement.  I cleaned out quite a bit, leaving only murder mystery party decorations and instruments with dates, and our annual Scooby doo day collection. = )  

This seems unrelated, but I'll tie it in by adding that one of the boxes I cleaned out was the zoo box, with all of our animal print goodies.  As soon as Grace saw it, she claimed all of the goodies just to wear on this day!

William made a very cool Christmas tree ornament in art class!

On Thursday, all three of the big kids got up early to put extra time into their "Christmas Character" outfit.  This gave me time to take a picture before we ran out the door!  Emily went as Cindy Lou Who.  Her hair lasted until 3rd period she said!  Alice came home less blue than her morning representation of the abominable snowman.  And Willim went as an elf! = )

The twins' Thursday dress up theme was "hats."  They dug out the flapping hats that Alice and Emily got for Nikolasstiefel a few years ago.

It's been a fun month of preparing for Christmas!

later days

 *Bags tend to be our preferred way of wrapping the gifts we give away. = )