Magic and Mayhem

We had a lovely snowed in Christmas! Our area was in a snow emergency and they canceled Christmas church services, advised against any travel and basically told everybody to stay home with their families. What a lovely idea!

We had already opened our presents on the solstice but the kids each had a present from Santa to open on Christmas morning. I also filled their stockings with little things I could make and find, especially with an old fashioned feel. I printed out foldable cardstock toys and a gnome bowling game, gave them each a clementine and gathered up a few odd presents I had stashed for emergency gifts. They loved them all!

Santa brought each of the kids a camera, which made them all thrilled. Most of them, anyway. Jack was in a mood for the first half of the day but he eventually warmed up and loved his Sponge Bob camera. Alex’s was a toy John Deere camera that made farm animal sounds. Anna got a video camera for all of her songs, stories, plays and music videos. Victoria got a used Elph (an older version of my camera) and she’s taken some amazing photos with it.

We lost the internet on Christmas Eve and didn’t get it back until last night. I actually rather liked it, and it was a good way to force us all to do family stuff! We also lost phone service for most of Christmas Day. Luckily we have cell phones for emergencies, like calling Grandma and singing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

We had a fabulous Christmas feast, played dice games, read stories, watched bad TV (what channels we had that weren’t knocked out by the storm), did art and played.

Anna even ventured out in the snow to take pictures. She got bunches of wonderful ones and then accidentally deleted them all by reformatted her camera’s hard drive. Luckily she got some more wonderful ones the next day… and then accidentally deleted them a new way. We’re really hoping she doesn’t delete any today!

Yesterday the kids trekked the block to visit a friend who’s up from North Carolina. It took 20 minutes to make it there and back, but she wasn’t home. We went on a sledding walk instead and it was snowy and magical.

At some point we’re driving to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to spend time with them and open/deliver presents. The roads are still too bad today. Maybe tomorrow!

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