Waiting and preparing

The tree is waiting outside, and inside we are busy getting ready for Christmas.  I do not have a long list of gifts to finish up though, only a few small things.  This is our first year that we aren’t buying or making Christmas gifts for each other beyond a few thoughtful (and small) items plus some (usually forbidden) candy that will go in our children’s stockings.  Last year, rather than giving our kids all of their Christmas gifts on Christmas morning, we celebrated the twelve days of Christmas. There were stockings on Christmas morning, and then there was a gift on each day until Epiphany: sometimes a group gift, sometimes individual ones (some very small, some more siginificant.)  This year, there will be stockings on Christmas morning, but rather than giving our children gifts, we will be recruiting their help in choosing gifts for charity (our way of giving gifts to Jesus.)  On each of the twelve days of Christmas we will either choose a gift from the Food for the Poor Gift Catalog, or do something locally, such as buy dry goods for the food bank.  We also plan to sponsor a child in Liberia.  I think that my children will appreciate this new Christmas tradition, and I am excited to see how our twelve days of Christmas unfold.

I went upstairs to check on her, and found Beatrix reading to her doll, “We want Christmas!”  “But you can’t take Christmas!”  from Jan Brett’s Christmas Trolls.

Weeks ago, Jonny put a lock on the armoire where we store the girls’ clothing.  This was necessary, and if you have little girls, you will understand why.  Of course now they raid my fabric scraps.  The other night, I found this scene, and here’s what they told me:  “We’re very poor and we’re very cold so we have to dress in scraps….also we don’t have any food…so we have to eat at restaurants.”
Of course I replied, “Oh girls, that must be rough, the having to eat at restaurants part.”

p.s.  Beatrix painted her hands black.  I can’t get them clean.  They’re gray.  I’m sure the paint will wear off in a couple of days.  I am getting used to the bangs.