Holiday Imperfection

Activity #1: Re-enactment of the first Christmas

Each year we play this game and the kids act out the story while Daddy reads it. This year Darla was the rowdy sheep and Brigham was the over-anxious shepherd which made it less than picture perfect. Although the picture, and the reverence level may have been lacking - it was another raving success. It's so fun when we just sit back and let the 'magic' happen between the kids. I'm glad Christmas was on Sunday.

Activity #2: Gingerbread houses

This is an activity we started last year. We save our halloween candy until Christmas and use it to decorate gingerbread houses. The goal is to avoid eating so much at Halloween and to illustrate the point to the kids that candy isn't really food - more like arts and crafts supplies. I don't think it really works on either count, but it is fun and a good creative way to spend an evening together. We did this for family night activity and what started out as a great project ended with Mommy getting all freaked out about the mess we were making the fits we were throwing and the candy we were eating. (not my proudest moment). We had to stay up and watch a movie after so that we didn't go to bed feeling sad (and Mommy feeling guilty). Let's face it - I'm not a perfect parent (if such thing exists) . . . but next year I'll try to remember to enjoy the experience and to put down a tarp under the table before we start. (sorry about the blurry picture . . . someone got ahold of my camera and changed a setting and I couldn't find it which contributed to me freaking out because I just knew that we'd have to take it in and pay to have it fixed, but in the end I found it and it was all ok).