Post-Christmas December

But first, Christmas Day

Morning church - harder to find this side of the world but gladly joined

An extra love-gift of a pond skate for the kids

Turkey dinner that mixed in some Asian flavors and stlyes

Christmas slipper sock gifts (and others too!)

The 27th was supposed to be our big day of extended family christmas and Messiah From Scratch. But, people woke up sick - in 4 of the 5 households expecting to come! So we postponed to the 29th, when we had planned to play board games together. Instead of a marathon day out, we left our sick one (Jasmin) on the couch for the afternoon and joined messiah From Scratch. Poor Aiden really was thrown in the deep end! Sure, he likes to sing and even experiments with harmony, but suddenly here he was in a tenor section holding a score of The Messiah (of which he is not at all familiar) and expected to know how to follow along as this giant motley choir rushed through a 2 hour practice of select pieces and then performed them with the orchestra... by the end he was enjoying himself and says he'd do it again, so all is well. Grace thoroughly enjoyed all of it of course :)

On the 28th, we went to church and lunch with Imma, and then in the evening Grace and Mom went back out to walk through the Public Garden lights and then join a hymn sing evening. We sure have missed gathering to sing like that, so it was a lovely boost.

Then, on the 29th, along came an ice storm (the morning heralding sky was amazing!), creeping sickness (now all three kids were sick-ish), and a host of little irritants so that the Christmas party was rather muted and not well attended. But we are glad it still happened despite delays and sickness, and there were no travelling adventures even though the car was encased in freezing rain upon arrival.

Since then, all we've done is rest! Reading aloud to finish the book before Mom leaves, watching together the one time of the year we do so, and doing our own projects that have been languishing in busyer times. Mom is almost finished Grace's coat hem...