Pre-Christmas December

Another month has come and is nearly gone!  December is always a great time of year and a busy one, so little surprise that it has gone by so quickly.  We keep very busy at the holidays, although we don't have to try too hard.  It just sort of happens.  We had weekends put aside for the various 'tasks' of Christmas like baking, but they quickly got filled.  Here's a quick rundown of our month.

The first weekend in December, we had pageant rehearsal and then I took the girls to Wolf Trap for the annual President's Own Marine Corps Band free Christmas concert.  We met my sister and her kids there, and somehow managed to find seats for everyone, which was a miracle.  It's a cold day out at Wolf Trap, as you can imagine, but it doesn't really feel like Christmas until we go.  The band plays a variety of instrumental pieces for the first half hour, and then there's an hour long sing-a-long.  Frosty, Rudolph, and Santa all make an appearance, and it's a lot of fun.  At the end, there is a candlelight procession to Silent Night, which is very moving.  We were very cold, but we really enjoyed ourselves!! Astrid broke out a Santa hat that day, and I don't think it's left her head since!  My sister got one picture of us on the day, and it's mostly her daughter, but if you look hard, you can see Astrid behind me there.

While my dad was here, he gave us a giant snowman for our house, and so the girls and I spent an afternoon figuring out that, plus some other decorations we've put up for years.  We had a lighted garland on the fence, and an inflatable snowman that keeps tipping over.  We call him Drunk Santa.  The snowman, being 12 feet tall (nearly 4 meters) was a challenge--we needed to add support strings and then work out electrical.  We also got a star shower machine, and had to plug that in and get it set up.  All in all, it worked out very well.  Our house looks quite festive.  Some days later, Leah asked if we could put up the tree.  We succumbed to getting an artificial tree last year, so I got that out and we put it together.  Astrid said it was the ultimate DIY, and she had never built her own tree before.  Our tree is a riot of colored lights, ornaments in every shape and size, tinsel, and a hot pink glitter star on top.  It's like nothing our Danish princess had ever seen before.  They had a lot of fun decorating it, and I think one of my favorite memories of this Christmas will be that after it was up and decorated, Leah decided we should all lie with our heads underneath it so we could feel what it would be like to be presents.  We all laid under the tree for quite a while, chatting and looking at the lights and ornaments from underneath.  It was cool.

In my last post, I showed Astrid with her hair cut short.  Here she is shipping her hair off the Pantene:

She had quite an impact on others, because just this past week, Dipthi also donated her hair!  So cool. :)

We continued to babysit The Bup on Wednesday nights and took him on a few adventures.  We enjoyed an evening at the Illumination Light Show and Santa's Village one week.  Our routine came to be strapping him in the car with a snack, putting a Christmas movie on the DVD player for him and Leah, and driving around looking at lights.  He really enjoyed the light show very much, and was so excited to go meet Santa until it came time to actually have his turn meeting Santa.  Then he was like "NO WAY!"  Through a lot of coaxing by both the photographer and Astrid, he finally agreed to sit by Astrid's feet, but he was in no way, shape, or form happy about it.  If Astrid had so much as blinked, I'm pretty sure Bup would have been long gone.

We also took him on two other Christmas joy rides, made Christmas ornaments with him, and decorated cookies with him.  It's been fun having a little, little kid around on the holidays.  Bup's parents, Jason and Nancy invited us to see the lights at Paul's Bakery, a local bakery that puts up a huge light display and has Santa come and does a little reindeer train ride around the parking lot.  Astrid stuffed herself into a reindeer despite the objections of the ride operator, and we had fun wandering around looking at the lights.  We also went back later with my friend Linda from the UU as well and enjoyed another evening, although Astrid didn't stuff herself in the reindeer again!

Bup and Leah making gingerbread men

The light show at Paul's Bakery

Meeting Santa & Mrs. Claus at Paul's

We also worked hard on Christmas cards this year. I tried to get the girls to pose for photos, but that was a hot mess.  We eventually got 5 decent ones, but by the time it was over, everyone was fighting and in tears.  LOL  So no, it's not all fun and games as it seems.  We had an evening after the pictures were printed where everyone sat around the table and signed the cards.  It was the first year Leah signed her name herself, and having Astrid on there was pretty cool too.  The pictures came out well, I enjoyed getting them and sending them!  I've been keeping track of who sends cards back and for a while would only send them to people who were sending us cards, but now I am happily sending cards to whoever I feel would enjoy one without worrying about whether or not we get one back.  It's made me much happier.

Astrid also demonstrated a big sister's love, or else Leah demonstrated a potential for a future in diplomacy, when she got herself out of bed at 8:30AM on a Saturday to attend the breakfast with Santa at Leah's elementary school. We even walked over there in the cold, and Astrid still did it.

Leah was very proud to show Astrid around and we enjoyed a pancake breakfast and Astrid and I talked with a lady about hosting a stun gun party.  Ha.  Only in America!  We had a blast. After pageant rehearsal that morning, we had been invited to my friends Paul and Kris's house for a Christmas concert and Christmas dinner.  I try to go every year since they started inviting us, and even have the second weekend in December blocked off for 2017 just in case.  There is a big concert at their church, which is really nice, and then they host everyone at their house for a lovely dinner.  There is another family that comes every year and we always have a nice time seeing them--the mom was also widowed young, so it gives me hope to see her raising her kids so well and I love seeing them every year and how they've changed and what they're up to.  I think we've been going there for about 10 years, so the girl who is now a junior in high school was at one time a kid Leah's age, which just blows my mind!

The Christmas pageant was on 12/11.  Both girls spent a lot of time rehearsing and being in on it, and Astrid had a pretty good sized part.  She was a big hit in the pageant, lots of people commented on her sass and talent afterwards.  Leah was so terrified, she forgot to say her lines.  hahaha  But Astrid shone through like a star!  Her role was Mistletoe the Elf, a kind of wisecracking elf who gives the other elves a hard time.  Leah was a little elf called Glitter who is supposed to be rounding up runaway toys.  She basically ran in circles with younger children.  It was pretty cute.

Astrid as Mistletoe the Elf

After the pageant was over, we had to go over to my friend Amber's mom's Patti's house for her annual Thieves Christmas party.  The idea is simple--you bring a gift valued at $15 or under and put it in a pile.  We all draw numbers and take turns opening a random present.  You can also steal presents from other people who have already opened something you like.  It's a fun afternoon!  Amber's nephew wanted to play badminton as it was a pretty nice day for December, so Astrid got involved in a badminton death match. I also dared her to try spray cheese, but it turned out she totally loved it, so she wound up stealing the can and eating it all the way home.  She seems to like American food that isn't really food.

As if all of this wasn't enough, AFS had an international potluck dinner and the other Danish student, Claudia, wanted to go, but her host family wasn't able to bring her, so we were asked to host Claudia for the weekend.  We were excited to have another teen in the house and to learn more Danish customs.  Friday night, I took both girls and Leah to see the movie Loving, which was about an interracial couple who lived in Virginia.  They were married, even though it was illegal at the time, and eventually their case went all the way to the Supreme Court, making interracial marriage legal in the US.  It happened only about 20 minutes from Fredericksburg, where we live, and as we have a family that came together due to interracial adoption, I wanted Leah to see some of the ways in which people bravely stood up for paving the way for us to become a family.  It was a great local history lesson for the other two girls as well, and just a wonderful movie.  Very moving indeed.  The next morning, we had the girls do some baking and then they had to prepare food for the potluck.  Claudia chose to make frikadeller, Danish meatballs.  Astrid made risalamande, a rice pudding.  At the dinner, they had to discuss Danish Christmas customs, and led the other AFS'ers in a lively dance around the Christmas tree and around the room.  The food was delicious and it was fun to hear about the customs in all sorts of countries. 

Some of the 2016 AFS'ers in Virginia

 On Sunday, we took Claudia to church with us for the Christmas holiday buffet and a really interesting jazz service.  When we got home, we had a couple of hours to kill before meeting Claudia's host dad to drop her off, so Leah asked if she could teach us to make Christmas ornaments.  She used shredded paper that she blended with water, and we molded them into Christmas shapes.  Claudia taught me how to make Danish star ornaments and she and Astrid both made woven heart basket ornaments in which would could put small goodies.  It was so much fun.  And it was nice Leah took the lead on that activity.

We had a great time with Claudia being here!

The week before Christmas was pretty quiet.  Astrid had final exams the first three days the week before, and then she was done with school and hanging around.  We made cookies together, and hung around the house.  Leah finished school on the 21st.  I have been encouraging Astrid to do stuff with her friends, but she's had something of a hard time getting anything officially scheduled yet, so she wound up going to Sky Zone Trampoline Park with Dipthi one day (she sent me the picture to the left after I dropped her off, and it just cracks me up!).  She also spent a day visiting with her mom's cousin who was visiting Virginia from Washington State, and she had a good time doing that.  He was very nice, and I enjoyed meeting him as well.

So that really brings us up to Christmas.  This entry is a kind of mishmash, but the holidays tend to be, don't they?  They sort of rush by in a blur and then all of a sudden, they're over for another year!  But don't worry, only 364 days till Christmas 2017! :-)  I'll be back with a Christmas/ New Year's round up soon.