Counting Down

It's the fourth night of Hunukkah, and Mom has the candles ready for us each night.  Maddie lights the Shamash first, and of course that's done while we read the blessing, and then there's the other scripture read while we light the four other candles from the outside in.  We have a short devotional to read along with that, and we didn't have time to do dreidel tonight, we'll have to do that soon.

This morning Maddie opened her gift from Buc-ee, and here it was:

It's a Buc-ee's hair clip!  These gifts are actually useful, and somewhat mundane - at least in the case of the chapstick or bandaids.  And yet, they become magical when you slap a Buc-ee's logo on top of them!

Maddie was working on the puzzle a good bit today, and meanwhile Camille and I finished up the January booklet.  We were also working on a skit for Sunday.  I've got an idea with two shepherd dudes that meet up with Mary and Joseph on their way to Bethlehem.  The donkey's in the skit too - it turned out pretty well, and I think should be fun this Sunday.

We had a decent day today, although I hate to admit that I am officially sick again.  This has been going on since October, however I was under the impression that after taking antibiotics, things would get better.  This is not the case, clearly, as I'm back to the struggles with breathing and just nonstop drainage!  Okay, back to breathing treatments and all those things you do to deal with the symptoms at night.  Ick.

Moving on, tonight we saw a new Christmas special, "Ziggy's Gift."  It was from 1983 or something like that, and it was actually really unique.  At one point, a character reminded me of the thief from "The Thief and the Cobbler," and sure enough, that animator was the same guy.  It's a great style of animation, and a really neat little special there.  

After that, we went back to "Scrooged" again, that old Bill Murray "Christmas Carol" story.  So yeah, we've seen "A Christmas Carol" in a lot of different forms by this point of the year.  Certainly not all of them, of course, as there are many, many of them.  But this was a nice revisit to the 1980's - I remember seeing this one in the theater.  It was Christmas time of course, and there was something extra special going out to see these new Christmas movies in December.  Lots of people lined up - it was Lakeshore Mall, I believe.

Anyway, afterwards we read from "Hogfather" and then said our prayers.  I'm taking some medicine to help the sinuses, congestion and help me to sleep.  It's chilly outside, but it's nice and warm under the blankets.  Time for a long winter's nap.