Our family packed a lot of work and a lot of fun into December. The little kids made a giant gingerbread man one night. They also decorated a gingerbread house and cookie tree on a different night. I made the fruitcake, as always, but this year I barely made the two-weeks-before Christmas deadline. Grace was a baking fiend in December. She made 95 of my Great Grandma Katherine's dinner rolls, 18 loaves of challah bread, 36 of Bon Appetite's Ultimate Sticky buns, 2 chocolate bundt cakes, a red velvet cake (for Jesus' birthday), spritz cookies, sugar cookies, Hello Dolly cookies, pfeffernusse, bourbon balls and peppermint bark.
I read a new to us Christmas book to the kids called Nancy and Plum. Lydia got impatient for me to finish the book, so she sneaked off with it and read the last half in less than one day. Lil' stinker. I read a book to myself over the Christmas holiday, which was a rare treat. The Dirty Life has been on my book list for awhile now. It was so excellently written that when I finished the last page, I told Matt I thought we should start our own homestead. That thought lasted about ten minutes before I got a grip. My dad's words rang in my head, "Simplify, Melissa. Simplify." O.K. Reason wins again.
We hosted my family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We finally got to meet my sister's new husband. The kids broke him in with about 25 rounds of "Go Fish" and "Don't Bug Me!" What a guy! Christmas Day included a marathon session of Trivial Pursuit. When the game finally ended and Wade was declared the winner, I had about an hour to get my people together to head to Matt's family celebration. We had a quiet and relaxing time at Matt's parent's. Pretty amazing considering that there were 18 kids there (Matt's sister and her family were at her in-laws this year.)
The weekend after Christmas we headed north to celebrate my Uncle Keith's (and godfather's) 70th birthday. It was a surprise. He was tickled. We spent a few days there and had a nice time with my uncle, Aunt Leanna and my cousin George. The kids weren't used to the slow pace we kept on this visit. I said, "Hey! This is winter on the farm!"
We celebrated Isaac's 3rd birthday while we were there and also had a chance to explore the old homestead. The hoar frost was beautiful. The little boys were delighted to see deer and deer tracks, which they followed for quite a distance. They enjoyed putting their new found tracking skills to use. (They received the book, Tracks, Scats and Signs for Christmas.) Libby and Arie, the family dogs, were sad to see us pack up to go home. No more crumbs under under the dinner table.
In addition to all of this, we managed to sneak in a couple of snacky movie nights. One was before Christmas with our annual viewing of It's a Wonderful Life and the other was on New Year's Eve with another Jimmy Stewart movie called Made for Each Other. It was kind of a depressing movie. Matt bailed, but the rest of us watched to the bitter end. The very bitter end. The final few minutes finally got a little better, so we didn't go to bed completely depressed.
We celebrated Epiphany on Sunday, instead of Monday, January 6th, as most of us went to BSF that night. The girls and I prepared our traditional Epiphany feast. Grace added a Three Kings Cake to the menu this year. She used some of Grandma Dianne's famous dried fruit. It was yummy.
Joseph got his two front (bottom) teeth for Christmas and he and the rest of the kids got a stomach virus and then a cold, which they are still fighting. We finally pulled down the Christmas wreaths today. I guess it's official. Christmas is over. It was crazy, but we had a good time celebrating Jesus' birth with family and friends.
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