Last night Madison put out her boots at the fireplace, a tradition we've maintained for quite some time now. It's the night that St. Nicholas visits, or perhaps Krampus if you're naughty. Fortunately, as you can see above, Madison has been quite good this year. We dodged another bullet! But seriously, Jingle Bell is there inside the boot, alongside a whole lot of chocolate candy, the chocolate Santa, and a lot of mint candies and candy canes.
She's doing the advent calendar each day, and the LEGO version as well - every morning. Each morning Jingle shows up in a different way, and it's all been fun - the usual December!
We had KidPak this morning, and Madison was up there on stage as an angel to announce a special Christmas visitor on the way. The kids enjoyed the skit, and the message too. Today we showed online the great gingerbread house battle, and that is a hysterical competition between four contestants. Camille and Bailee did so terribly in it, but it was rather stressful, plus there were a lot of other elements going on that really made it a chaotic gingerbread battle. And that's what made it fun. I love that before filming, we have to remind everyone that this game is not fair. Meaning, you can have all the skill in the world here or there, or all the luck in the world, but suddenly things are going to shift and you never know what's going to happen. That in fact happens, and the video was a lot of fun to film this week. We watched it a few times this afternoon.
Camille's house is the one that cracks me up the most. The walls just wouldn't stay up at the end, so we wadded up this paper bag from a fast food place, and made it into a make-shift tornado. Camille added some red gumdrops to a gingerbread person's feet, and made her Dorothy, and we had the house themed to the Wizard of Oz... after the tornado came through.
The ruby slippers were a hilarious touch. She just dumped all the candy right there inside the house, this pile of candy rubble. It was pretty funny, so inspired by all the gingerbread creations, we set out to do that ourselves, both Madison and myself this afternoon.
We didn't have a time limit, or opponents throwing things like giant lollipops or pieces of coal. So they turned out a little better. Madison did the reindeer sleigh there, and I did the small gingerbread house. We sat down and did these while we had a few movies on the television, with Nana and Mom watching those. We had "Home Alone" and "A Christmas Carol" with Patrick Stewart, which is one of my favorite versions.
Here's a close-up of the one that I was working on. I actually love the backside of this one, so I'll have to post that in a bit. Here below is the one that Madison was working on.
I love this tradition. Madison did a lot of work on this one, and came up with the idea to do the candy canes on the bottom of the sled. The saddle has a smile on it, one made of candy canes too. She spent a good bit of time putting out each of those tiny little bits of candy, and rolled up something to use for the reins. It turned out well!
Uh-oh, it looks like Wolverine is here. Well, as he used to say, "I go where I want to go!" And he's in the sled here for one final photo.
This afternoon, the three of us had a nice meal at the Olive Garden. As good as their chicken marsala used to be, Mom makes it so much better. Madison thought the same about the spaghetti she ordered. Nana ate a lot of her food, just loving it. This is good, as she hasn't really eaten since Friday or so. She is on and off with the eating, just "not in the mood." I wish I had that affliction some times!
Anyway, we had a good day, and the gingerbread houses turned out well. We closed the day out not quite sure what to read next before bedtime, and settled on "The Silver Chair." I'm of course delighted to go back to Narnia. A chapter per day will get us to the next fifteen days or so, as we follow the further adventures of Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole. I'm already super happy to be back in Narnia.
We said our prayers tonight, and went to bed a little later, but it was a good night's rest for all.
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