It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I love this picture, even though the youngest of the kids is missing from the photo, because I think it shows their personalities so well! We had our annual holiday party with our good friends early this year because one family is quite popular and was all booked for the month of December, except for the first weekend. It ended up working out well because the weather was perfect to go to Candy Cane Court to see all the amazing lights they do each year. I won't bore you with photos of the lights-- just that picture above of the kids, at the start of our walk.

This weekend, in contrast, it was cold and rainy. I don't mind it so much for the winter. Yesterday, we mostly stayed indoors. I whipped up some salt dough, and Casey and Marcie used cookie cutters to make some new ornaments for our Christmas tree.

That's not all we did on our "lazy" Saturday. Marcie had swim lessons (it's an indoor pool, thankfully), and after swimming, we stopped by our favorite nail place. The ladies in there are always so good to Marcie, who loves getting her nails done. And they were slow. They only charged $3 for her nails-- and look at their amazing work (it's a little blurry, but that's a snow flake and a snowman on her thumbs). Yes, yes. I tipped ridiculously well.

We'd hoped to make it to our local Winter festival, where they light the big tree, offer train rides for the kids, and have a variety of live music entertainment, but the rain just didn't want to let up in the evening hours. Instead, we drove to Del Mar's Holiday of Lights. It was a conglomeration of lights all over the internal portion of the race track (we drove the outside). The kids oohed and ahed and drank hot chocolate from Starbucks while we drove slowly along the path.

Then this morning the kids got all gussied up for our special event-- How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Old Globe. Casey was a little anxious about seeing the Grinch. We'd read the story (he actually read it to me) a couple times this weekend, and we watched the cartoon TV special (purchased at Target, if you're looking), too, since that's the true story and the version the play follows. It was really a great show. The actor who played the Grinch was fantastic. And a kind family even agreed to do some "photo swaps" with us, so we managed to get a picture of the whole family together. (See below)

Then this afternoon, we headed out to watch Casey play indoor soccer. For the first time this team season, his team lost a game (to the other undefeated team), which caused Casey to cry. And it was against the team that has the player Casey used to play with every season, before we started him in a recreational league. Poor guy. But he played like a champ-- we were all especially impressed when he took a ball directly to his left eye, which definitely fazed him for a moment. But he was tough and he kept on playing. We iced it and gave him some Tylenol, and I don't think it'll bruise. But we'll know for sure in the morning.

We ended the day by building a fire in our fire place.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

Marcie's Holiday Show

Well, we had a repeat performance of last year. Except she didn't stand there and cry the whole time. Instead, she chewed on her new mitten. And that was with Casey sitting next to her the whole time. Later, she said she would've sung if Casey had sung with her class. Which is, of course, ridiculous.

Here's a sample:

I admit, I didn't photo or video much-- how much can you tape of your child standing around doing nothing while everyone else is performing? . . .

Explaining God

Casey has a long-standing tradition of playing with the family nativity set. Even though he has his own nativity set for kids (made by Fisher Price). He's gotten a little better about it with time, but not much.

This year, he and Marcie helped set up the nativity scene on the front table. Then we took out Casey's nativity scene and he arranged it right next to the grown up one. We talked about why we leave the Baby Jesus up until Christmas morning, when we place him in the manger in the scene to represent His birth. And then the kids went to bed.

The next morning, I heard Casey yell across the house: "Mom, I found God!"
When I got to the nativity scenes, Casey was holding up to statues of Joseph. He had taken the one from the family set and was comparing it to the Joseph from his Fisher Price set. Proudly, he explained to me that we had God in our family set and he had God in his set, too.

"That's not God, Casey," I said. "That's Joseph. That was Mary's husband."

"No," Casey replied. "Jesus is the Son of God. God is Jesus' father. So this has to be God."
"You're right, Casey," I said. "God is Jesus' father. But this is Joseph."
"Then where is God?" Casey asked, exasperated.

Marcie, who'd been standing by and observing our conversation, responded: "God is everywhere, Casey!"