Christmas Eve and Christmas

A little catching up! First of all, the question on everyone's lips: what did the rest of the children do while we were in Greece with Malachi? 

1. They made gnomes, of course. Sock gnomes. You put them on foam cones. (Foam cone gnomes does have a nice ring to it.) I like how each one has his own little personality!

2. Daisy valiantly carried on with Santa Lucia day and made the buns herself. (Goldie helped her, I believe.)

Clementine and Evie dressed up.

And the girls served the happy little boys!

3. Junie made this lovely and festive dinner of pasta (with two kinds of sauce!) and watermelon lemonade. (The girls took turns making dinner while we were gone.)

4. Someone, I think it was Daisy. made pancakes in animal shapes for everyone.

5. They made these fwuffball Christmas trees.

And that is the end of the updates they sent to me!

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We thought Sebastian might not be able to come home for Christmas at all this year. As a new employee he has no seniority and can't take days off like he'll be able to later. We were resigned to it. But then a few weeks before Christmas, they needed volunteers to take a different shift for a month, Seb volunteered, and that shift came with Christmas and Christmas Eve off! He was able trade shifts for the 23rd too, so we had him for almost three days before he had to fly back to Denver on Christmas Night. It was perfect!

The other kids were SO excited and happy to have Seb home. It was sweet to watch them gathering around him everywhere he went. He is so kind and good to them. A true miracle, as I'm sure I've said before and will say again. If I'd been told of it five years ago I would have scoffed in disbelief.

Gus was up early on Christmas Eve morning to help me with the butterscotch rolls (24 dozen of them. I did start a triple batch the night before so as to have a head start)!

Teddy helping make the glaze

I didn't take pictures of the party itself this year (it looks about the same every year, so it's fine), but I DO want to remember this beautiful clean kitchen I came out to after resting for a while after the party. Junie had put everything away and cleaned off the counters and everything! Bless her. I was SO happy.

Gnomes on the table

Sam has turned the Elf Olympics games over to the big boys (and Daisy, this year) and it works so well. They have the best ideas! Malachi made up a "Detect the A.I.-designed toy" game that was so fun. We had to draw toys based on a prompt, and a couple people in each round (the A.I.s) didn't have access to the actual prompt but were just drawing based on what everyone else drew. Then we voted on who were the fakers and who were the real elves.

Seb was the A.I. on this round, so he stuck a six-fingered man in the tractor. We were dying of laughter.

Seb's game—balancing couch cushions on your head while you walked. None of us were good at it except Seb. (Malachi was okay too, I think.)

Daisy's and Abe's games were also super fun (designing gnomes, and a twist on Hide and Seek with huge stuffed animals) but I don't have many pictures of them.

Then it was time for our candlelight dinner (gnomelight, in some cases)

It's a happy thing to have this table so full!

Presents wrapped and under the tree! My favorite night of the year!

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Christmas morning

There were so many good presents the children made for Sam and me and each other this year. I took pictures of some of them over the next days and weeks, but I still don't know if I got them all. I love seeing what these creative people come up with, though, and am amazed at their talents!

Santa ornament Junie sculpted and painted for Sam

And the cutest bunny (Nutmeg) for me. I don't know how she made him so cute.

Junie crocheted Daisy this huge squishy octopus, which we are all in love with

And she made this huge cake pillow for Goldie (with whipped cream and a strawberry on top)

Daisy made me this yellow blanket earlier in the year, but I made her wrap it up for me on Christmas anyway. And then she said she had ANOTHER present for me, and I said whatever it was I couldn't possibly like it as much as I like my yellow blanket…

… and then I opened it up and it was a tiny, MATCHING yellow blanket! The cutest!!

Clementine put both blankets to use very soon.

Goldie crocheted a bunch of picnic food for Clementine. Little cakes and cookies, a sandwich, a pretzel, fruit…all of it adorable.

Here it is by Fernie for scale.

Goldie also made Gus a Caw hat…

…a police dog (with removable coat and hat) for Ziggy…

…and a Dune Sandworm finger puppet for Malachi.

Junie made Ziggy this official-looking FBI badge wallet out of duct tape.

Daisy sewed these t-shirts for the three little kids.

She made a Birdie keychain for Ky

A hamburger for Abe. And a plane for Seb (I don't think I got a picture of it).

We do draw names for sibling presents in our family. And this year, we told everyone they had to do an activity with their sibling as their gift. (I'll post about those later.) So all these cute homemade things were just the extra presents for those who wanted to give their other siblings something too! The girls spent a ton of time thinking of and making it all. They were able to use a lot of yarn and scrap fabric we already had, too. It makes the lead-up to Christmas so fun when there are all these secret projects going on! I loved it.

Sleigh Ride duet! My favorite!

Like everyone else in the world (or at least our ward) we were sick off and on ALL through December and early January, it felt like. A bunch of us had a long and drawn-out fever and cough which felt worse than anything we've had for a while! Miraculously we were all pretty well on Christmas Eve and Christmas itself, and for the Nutcracker performance. But then we either came down with a couple new sicknesses, or had a resurgence of the previous one, and had to do a lot more lying around and recuperating through the next couple weeks. It was annoying to start to feel better and then find yourself sick again! But it was also nice that we didn't have anywhere particular to be, and could lie around doing nothing if necessary!

We all did our various puzzles and lego sets that post-Christmas week. Teddy whipped out these mini-National Parks puzzles.

Gus loved to put this panda puzzle next to its box and point out to me how they matched (and differed).

Abe made his Sherlock Holmes Book Nook

And I made this Lego Bunny Abe gave me! It's been a long time since I played with Lego, and it was fun. Relaxing.

The girls got such cute little tiny houses to build. We all loved looking at the teeny details (little books on shelves, boxes of bread, tiny cookies, potted plants, that sort of thing).

Junie's greenhouse

Goldie's Bakery

Daisy's chocolate shop

Teddy's prized BYU blanket

My Christmas present to Clementine was a collection of tiny bread-baking things that match mine, so she can help me make bread every week. It has been SO FUN. She loves making her tiny bread and I love having her help me! It's so cute!! 

Tiny bread

Evie having a piece of the tiny bread

And lastly, some new Christmas dresses! Twirly ones!