Christmastime

We decorate for Christmas after Thanksgiving dinner each year, so our season is short, but we tend to be so busy, that it isn't such a bad thing.

I saw a cute little video online of someone wrapping their toilet paper, and I wanted to decorate our toilet paper too!  I didn't have the fancy patterned paper that they used in the video, but I liked our little candy cane toilet paper towers. = )

My mom helped me pull a years' worth of mostly thrifted Christmas presents from Sarah's basement, and it was more than I anticipated. = O

These were most of the squishmallows.  We pulled the ones with tags for the girls to gift to their friends for Christmas. The VOA that I bought them from informed me that they were donated by Claire's at the mall, since they weren't selling very well. I also set aside the Halloween ones that accidentally got mixed in with the Christmas bags. 

Billy was invited to his company's Christmas party at a bowling alley, despite only having worked there for a few weeks.  It was nice to meet some of his coworkers!

The set up was really cool, there were lanes in the party room!  And a private buffet/bar area!

Billy and I bowled with his coworkers Wendy and Sarah, and Sarah's significant other, Don.  I won game one, but our second game was cut short, but as Sarah was in the lead, we declared her the winner.

It was a nice evening.

Emily was helping me cook dinner earlier in the week, and I didn't hear her ask about the tomatoes, and she was already halfway through cutting up one of my Roma tomatoes, before I saw what she was doing. =- (  I feel like I was able to recover it for a salad display for my mom's meeting though!

Usually, the day I get the molasses in my Kroger order, Grace is after me to make the gingerbread houses.  This year though, without that prompting, it was Christmas Eve before I made time to make them!

We had a diminished supply of molasses, since we used it for the St. Lucia cakes at Alice's band concert, but the dough held well, it was just not as sweet. had Alice helped me make the dough the night before, so that we wouldn't have to wait for it to solidify in the morning.  Even so, it still took hours to make, because of the wait time between each round for the mold to cool back down.

One the gingerbread was done, and the icing* whipped up, the fun could begin!

Emily went with her bff Abby to see Santa.  Her mom sent me the pictures, and I love all of them!

I feel like this year has been just the right amount of festive!

later days

*Michigan is switching to requiring all eggs sold in grocery stores to be cage free, so the past two grocery orders, they haven't had eggs. = 0  So, we stretched a single batch of icing for two houses, because my egg stash is running low.

edit 12-30-28: added in the gingerbread houses, since we didn't make them Christmas day.

Computer Cabinet Cleanout

William was the first to clean out his computer cabinet, because his birthday gifts had no home in his cabinet, and were living, illegally, on top of his cabinet.  So, before we decorated for Christmas, he had to clean his cabinet out, since we use the top of his cabinet for the advent calendar!

Then, during the thanksgiving break, Emily, Grace and Juliet also decided to clean theirs out (to beat the rush before Christmas!)

I was so proud of how well they evaluated what to keep and what to give away.

As the get rid of box filled up, I started to pull things that other people might be interested in, as stocking stuffers or small treats for kids they knew!

First, I brought the unclaimed (via text message) items up to the school and set them out in the teacher's lounge, then brought the rest (as well as the entire contents of my get rid of pile) to a moms meeting.  One of the sweet ladies in the group offered to take the remainder to a free to shop 'thrift' store.  So, I was relieved of having to take it anywhere!  

My mudroom felt really empty, until it was time for Alice to clean out her cabinet.  She didn't get rid of quite as much as her siblings, but we did vacuum and dust her cabinet, and she threw out trash that had been in there a while.  So, her cabinet looks better, even though she won't admit it. lol.

The twins also spent two evenings cleaning out the American girl doll closet, getting rid of a few things, and under the bed where their folding kitchen from last year lives, getting rid of quite a bit!

So, I brought more to our last moms' meeting of the year, where people were able to claim a few treasures. And a totally different, but also sweet, lady offered to take my cast offs to a thrift store, since she was running her own there after the meeting!   

My house feels lighter and cleaner, and we now have a little more space for the goodies under the tree. = )

later days