This year Christmas has been flying by. Grandma Kazleman came up to celebrate with us and the kids loved having an extra pair of arms to snuggle them and read them Christmas stories--especially John, That child has all the grandparents wrapped around his little fingers. I think it's something to do with his particular combination of eyelashes and dimples.
Christmas Eve went better than I expected. We had to go to the children's mass at the church closest to our house because that's where David was singing in the choir. As far as I can remember, we've never actually been to a children's mass on Christmas Eve before, we always either went to mass on Christmas day or to the midnight mass. This mass wasn't especially beautiful and it was extremely crowded, but the kids certainly were entertained and it was fun to watch David sing and begrudgingly perform the hand motions that accompanied the songs. I made a feast of appetizers for dinner and in an impulse of brilliance I had the children exchange their Secret Santa presents and reveal their identities to each other before bed. They worked so hard doing extra chores and choosing gifts for each other that it would have been a shame to let the excitement they had be overshadowed by all the other Christmas morning festivities. When David gave Margaret the Frozen Lego set he bought her, little John turned to him and said in awe, "you picked the perfect present!"
It was adorable.
Christmas morning was over in a blur of wrapping paper and bows and chocolate coins and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves. For dinner I attempted my first ever jello mold, choosing a recipe that included mini marshmallows just like the ones my grandmother always made which made for not as cute of a presentation, but live and learn. I'm the only one who actually thought it was good, but then again, I'm the only one who was emotionally invested in the thing. Don't worry, next year it's going to be even better :)
Since Christmas day, we've been doing all of our traditional Twelve Days of Christmas activities: visiting the Botanical Gardens train display, making gingerbread houses, eating gingerbread houses, and slowly parceling out presents--new sketchpad day! board games from grandma and grandpa day! Next week we'll have my birthday, Christmas for the animals, Epiphany with a special cake, and the best day of all--the day when I reveal all of the books I've been squirreling away for each child for the past six months! The kids love books, but they can't really compete with the excitement of new toys and craft supplies on Christmas day. By holding them back until the end it really extends the celebrations all the way to Epiphany.
Tonight for New Year's Eve I'm going to make fondue for the first time ever with the free fondue set straight from 1973 that I scored last summer (what can I say, it's been a holiday of experimental vintage recipes!). Then we'll watch footage of the ball dropping somewhere in Europe and go to bed by 9:30. We know how to do holidays right at the Reintjes house ;)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! How are your celebrations going? And more importantly, who has fondue tips they want to share?