Nutcrackers and the Fireplace

We put up the nutcrackers tonight, and we're starting to assemble quite a collection.  They're a little more close together up there on the top shelves, but they fit well enough.  Before lining them up on top as we always do, I set them up for the traditional group picture on the kitchen table in front of Maddie doing her homework.  You can see in the background something else new for the season, a fire in the fire place.

How about a closer look?  Yes, we had a good fire roaring in the fireplace tonight, which was the perfect thing to accompany another Christmas movie - we watched "The Santa Clause" tonight, and we all still love this one.  We watched it because we knew the upcoming new series with all the same actors and characters is coming this Wednesday, and so we'll have to "get caught up."  As if we need reminding of any of the parts of this movie - we have the dialogue pretty much memorized by this point!

We did learn something new a few years ago, after watching this movie so many times.  We discovered there are actually elves in the classroom scene, super early on.  No notice is called to these students, and nothing pointed out - except their ears.  Those are pointed, but no attention is drawn to them at all, and so after all these years we just now noticed it.  Anyway, we were watching that this evening before bed, and it was a nice time together. 

Maddie's catching up on homework - she's doing this Funko pop design of famous historical figures, and it's pretty fun - we'll have to share that here soon enough, but she was working at the kitchen, creating her figure and studying up on some world history.

We've got the piano room tree up with the lights on, but tomorrow night we'll start putting ornaments on that one.  It might not get done until Wednesday, but it's coming along nicely.  Also coming along is our amaryllis, which I picked up for Mom a few weeks ago.  She put it amongst the rocks with the water, just as we always do, and already there's some growth upwards.  It should certainly bloom before Christmas, or at least that's what I'm thinking.  It'll be nice, and of course we'll share pictures of that.

Baby, it's cold outside.  The wind is roaring, and we're ready to snuggle down for the night.  We read from the Discworld, and we said our prayers tonight.  It's time for some rest!