Pre-Christmas, Christmas, Post-Christmas

December was surprisingly sunny and even warmish. (And we haven't had snow or rain, to speak of, for…ages it seems like. All year! No thunderstorms. No snowstorms. Nothing.) Our Benge cousins came to visit one morning, so everyone could remind each other who we were. It was nice to see them after a long year of not seeing anybody!

The kids and I made a bunch of owl and penguin hand warmers for a school activity one day (we were learning about birds). We delivered a bunch of them to my hypothetical Primary Class. Sam and I were called to teach the 9-year-olds, but since the church isn't having Primary right now, we are trying to get to know the kids somehow in other ways!

Bubble wrap from some package or other. Always a treat to get this instead of the plastic air bags they usually use nowadays!

This was a card Teddy made for my mom and I loved it so much. It's a picture of a stripy cat! I love how each stripe has a leg.

Gus has the peculiar habit of crawling to whatever box he can find and then stuffing himself into it. I've seen videos of cats who do the same thing. 

We've been excited all year to watch the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on the Winter Solstice. There was a festive little crowd of neighbors gathered on the hill with telescopes. It actually was more impressive to see Jupiter and Saturn without the telescope (they looked closer together that way!), but it's always great to look at the moon, if all else fails! (Speaking of which, have you seen this video? There's some swearing in it so watch out, but it's cool to see people's reactions.)

It didn't take a very impressive picture (you can barely make out both planets, though!) but it was great in the sky!

Daisy decided to have a Graham-Cracker-Nativity-Scene-making activity for Nursery on the Sunday before Christmas. (She started Young Women's in January, so now Junie has taken over as Home Nursery Leader!) It was cute. A neighbor had given us one of those bags of awful cotton candy, so they used that to make pink hillsides (?) with Teddy-graham shepherds and goldfish-cracker sheep on them. The Holy Family were Fruit Snacks and so I kept hearing phrases like "MY Baby Jesus is a grape." Hmm. Not sacrilegious, I hope?

THIS is a familiar sight these days. No cupboard within Gus' reach is safe!

Furthermore, if you speak a stern word to Gus, or set him down when you've been holding him, or do anything else that displeases him, he lays his head down and BONKS it on the floor in despair. And then cries all the more at you, accusingly.

It was fun having our Christmas Eve Candlelight Dinner on our new table. Room for everyone!

The siblings exchange their gifts on Christmas Eve too. These are the elaborate things Marigold made for Abe (or "Abbey"…for some reason? Westminster Abbey, perhaps?). They are little houses and tables and beds for a family of Bear Fluffballs she made. They were SO adorable.

Ziggy wins the prize for best present-opening faces. This was a beanbag toss game Daisy had made for him.

Seb got up at 3 a.m. on Christmas morning to run this "Merry Christmas" route on GPS with some of his friends. Can you believe it? So cool.

Christmas Day was noisy and happy as always. Ziggy, the constant hat-wearer, got this doggy hat that he hasn't taken off since. The funniest part was when he tried to put his feet in the little "mittens" and walk around like that.

He also got this little yapping doggy which ran around barking like a hyperactive squeaky toy all through Christmas Day and beyond, till it mercifully ran out of batteries. The very best kind of Christmas toy for a 3-year-old!

And the day was sunny enough that the kids could run out to the hill and play with their Stomp Rockets.

Sam got me a new mirrorless camera, which has been fun to experiment with (though so far he has experimented more than I have!). I love how light (meaning, not heavy!) it is compared to our old camera, and I'm trying to get used to the digital viewfinder. It's going to be fun to learn more about it. Right now the memory card is full of pictures of people looking up at me in slight annoyance as I sit and fiddle with the settings and take pictures of whatever happens to be in my vicinity.

Here are Daisy and me both wearing our velvet dresses.

Some weird faces.

This was taken one evening where the clouds and light were so strange and pretty!

It took a great picture of the full moon!

Sam is a patient subject.

And another evening staying out with Stomp Rockets in the last of the light!