I'll catch you up on our holiday happenings. We typically only do school the first week of December and then week take the remainder of the month to do other things like card making, volunteering, baking, etc. I LOVE, LOVE the month of December. I love that we are able to step back from routine, wake up and decide to do something out of the ordinary and not worry about checking boxes off of a lesson plan grid.
I'll go back a bit and take us to November because that is when our "holiday" mindset started. A good friend of ours opened an Operation Christmas Child collection center just down the road from us. We were THRILLED to be able to serve Operation Christmas Child in a new way. For the last several years our family has packed shoe boxes full of necessities (and some fun stuff too) for children in third world countries. We enjoy letting each girl fill a box and taking part in this family tradition. Usually, you pack a box, drop it off at a collection point, and a few weeks later you receive an e-mail telling you what country your boxes went to. This year we were able to do all of the above AND work at a collection center for a couple days helping pack the over 1,000 boxes we collected from our community and greet the people dropping the boxes off. It was a fun experience. Sissy specifically, who has a huge heart for serving, loved this next step in seeing these boxes reach children.
The last two years the girls enjoyed filling out the All About Me sheets that you can add to your boxes. It is a sheet that allows your child to add a photo of themselves, their home, answer some questions about their favorite color, etc. Sweet Baby really had fun filling that out. We have friends who actually received a letter from a child in India who received their box! The form includes a place for your address and the child was able to send a letter to them!
On December 1, Sissy and Peanut were able to serve about 60 ladies at our church. Our American Heritage Girls troop needed some older girls to serve at a Christmas breakfast, so the girls were helping set up, filling plates, re-filling water, clearing tables, etc. They had fun being able to serve at our charter organization and work with a group of ladies who really appreciated them.
Peanut and I went to see The Nutcracker for the second year in a row. The rest of the family did not enjoy it last year, so we made it a "date day" and went together. This is the best self portrait I was able to get of the two of us.
It was a fun afternoon. Peanut is such a creative girl and so she really likes things that are creative - art museums, theater, etc. I love seeing her get excited for things like seeing The Nutcracker and watching her experience it. Here she is just before we found our seats.
I'll share some more about our holiday happenings tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed your holiday as much as we did!
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