Gingerbread house:
When we were kids, my mom would make these huge gingerbread houses for us to decorate. Not just that dinky house you decorated at school but all out gingerbread house... or fort, or log cabin, or castle... Stained glass windows and over a foot high. Then she would set us loose with candy and frosting... honestly it was brave of her to let four kids who never got sugar go to town like that. Anyway, we did it again this year. I think she mostly did it for Samuel but I had fun too. We did a train station and I think it turned out pretty well.
It is all edible... and we did eat some. Which I regretted later in the day. What with frosting and eating your decorating mistakes, it was way too much sugar in one sitting. How do kids do that? Bleck. But it was so much fun to do again. Maybe this tradition will live on.
Tree cutting. This may be one of my favorite childhood Christmas memories. Every year, we would pack up to the mountains in search of the perfect, or in our case huge and fat, Christmas tree. We would go with the families of Ruth Washburn with cookies and hot chocolate and have the time of our lives running around the mountains. I always had so much fun and I'm so glad we got to do that again this year. Mr. Hannigan's organization owns a ranch up in the mountains that we went to this year for a free tree. Since this winter has been relatively mild, it was warm and sunny and beautiful. We drove up there with Samuel and the dogs and began the great tree hunt. First thing out of the car, what does Whitman do? He peed all over my leg! Stupid dog had all these trees and rocks to mark and he just had to lift his leg on me. It was lovely... of course, I can't say that is the first time that a dog has peed on me and it probably won't be the last sadly. Anyway, it really didn't take us too long to find the tree we wanted and Samuel and I sawed it down.
We were up there for less than an hour. I had to get back to work which sucked because I would have loved to soak in that mountain air a little more. Jeanine LOVED her first expedition to the mountains. She ran around like a crazy girl and found a stick. Such a Labrador. I am so happy that she expressed her joy in a way that didn't include urine on my leg.
Thank goodness I live with Jake now because when we got home he got the wonderful job of putting the tree up. I would do it but I do prefer this way because I don't get sap on me or poked.
Decorating. One of my favorite things to do was get all the Christmas boxes out and decorate! Over the years I have slowly started accumulating my own boxes of Christmas decorations. I love this process! Of course I get my best stuff after Christmas when it is all on sale. Anyway, this was the first year that I've actually put up Christmas lights on the house by myself. And when I say by myself, I mean with Jake's help. I am so pleased!
Every year, my mom got us ornaments about something we did that year. I've continued this tradition with Samuel this year. Needless to say, I have a lot of ornaments now. I usually put as many up as I can and the poor tree gets overwhelmed but this year I tried to put a cap on it and limit the swarm on the tree. It looks a little naked to me but still nice I guess.
Even the dogs got involved in the decorating fun... or they were lassoed in. I plead the fifth.
One of the best things about this time of year is gift giving. I like getting gifts, just like everyone else in the world. If you say you don't like getting gifts then you're lying. Anyway, I like that but I LOVE giving gifts. I love picking out things that I think will just be the perfect gift. I love people's faces when they get something they love and had no idea to even ask for. I hope everyone loves their gifts this year. More on that later.
Until then, happy holidays!
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