Victorian Christmas in Color

This morning, Jingle Bell and Snowflake must have gotten jealous of us playing the boardgames we were yesterday, because they set up a game themselves, this time with a small stuffed snowman and a stuffed ornament.  We're not sure who was winning, but it does look like they were having fun!

This morning was KidPak after all, two services, and everything was pretty much normal.  Except many kids were upstairs for our "Christmas in Color" production.  And that some of our folks couldn't make it due to power outages and weather-related conditions outside.  North Hall and above got to see snow and ice, but we did not see any in Forsyth, and the half inch of ice in Gainesville apparently melted before we woke up.  So all was well for service today, and Daddy spoke to the kids today for the opening of Whoville.  It went well, with clips from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," something Daddy wrote out earlier.

After a really great morning at KidPak, we were off to the Northeast Georgia History Center, where they were having a special Victorian Christmas celebration this afternoon.  It has been noted that this is the 200th anniversary of "Silent Night," which of course was one of the songs performed today.

There were plenty of period costume pieces there, and some familiar faces as well.

We remember some of these people from last year at the center, but also from the Wren's Nest last year at Christmas time.  They saw Madison and remembered her, and actually sought her out to take a picture with her again.  Daddy snapped the picture as well!

You can see Madison is dressed in a late Victorian era piece here... okay, maybe not.  She doesn't even look like a newsboy, and in fact, I'm not sure what people would have thought if they saw her approach in attire like this.  Fortunately, these Victorian folks were not quite as snobbish, and in the spirit of Christmas were quite happy to see her.  All of them!

And Madison was happy to see them too, mainly because it gave her another opportunity to do the Carolina Promenade, or at least I think that's what the dance is called.  It's a progressive dance that allows you to dance with everyone in the room, which of course Madison was delighted to do.

And of course there was more than dancing to be done here this afternoon.  Madison was doing crafts, making cookies, making ornaments, and even catching up with a friend from church that she just saw a few hours ago.

You can see the girls attempting to write with the pens from that period in time, making a few vintage Christmas cards.  Actually, all of us were doing much of this - Mommy and Daddy made a few cards as well, and who knows?  Maybe you'll get one this season!

This was a fun game that Madison played - she's a general of her own army of redcoats, and of course she has to knock down the blue coat soldiers with her pop cannon!

This was a game either invented by HG Wells, or at least played by him.  Regardless, Madison was quite successful with it!  Things were progressing along for the five rounds, with each player taking two shots.  The guy who ran the table was on one side, taking his turn and then allowing Madison hers.  On round four things were even, until suddenly one of Madison's shots hit a soldier at just the right angle that he fell sideways into another, and that one into another.  One singular cannon fire knocked down six wooden soldiers in a row, and just like that, Madison had an insurmountable lead, and found herself the eventual victor in the battle!

After such a thrilling battle, a visit with "The Man!"

Madison had a picture with Santa on the front porch of a facade that was built inside the museum.  He was dressed as a Victorian Santa, and there was a person there taking these photographs, which you see above.  We scanned it and added it to our collection - it turned out pretty good!

After this, it was time for "Christmas in Color" at Free Chapel once again.  We couldn't see this morning's presentation, because we were running KidPak.  But there was no children's service this evening, so we were able to watch the production tonight, and it turned out great!  Daddy contributed a good bit to the writing for the comedic parts, and even the parts about the the actual Christmas story.  Of course, these are just tiny parts of a much larger presentation, but it is neat to see some of the things that I personally contributed.  And of course Mommy contributed a lot as well.  The three of us really liked it!

Tonight, we were back home and back inside rather quickly:  it was cold outside, as advertised.  The girls got baths tonight, and we were watching the Christmas episode of Mr. Bean again.  We didn't do as much tonight at home, mainly because we did so much the rest of the day.  It was a great day though, full of a lot activity and fun.  We read tonight, still reading from the book of Luke, then the Scrooge devotional, and a chapter from the Nutcracker book, which I have to say we're enjoying beer than the movie we just saw.  It's been good.

We dove under the covers tonight, and got ourselves a good night's rest.  It's been a pretty full weekend!