Returning to Neverland

We were back in Neverland this morning with a new script that Camille has been working on, one where the Lost Boys (made up of girls) are learning to do Thanksgiving for the first time.  Of course, Hook has his plans too.  It'll be a shorter story, just four weeks long in November, but it's already off to a great start. you can see Maddie and a friend Nia as "twins" in the skit.  We spent a long time looking for the parts to those costumes yesterday, but they came out really well.  Nia was a character in Holly, and Maddie has known her for quite some time since then, as each Wednesday night, she's online with Camille's small group.  So her integration into the group hasn't been much of a challenge at all - she fits right in, and had a great time.  In fact, we all had a great time this morning at KidPak.  It's funny how these messages line up with real-life examples.  A long time ago we had this message planned about "what's your talent" and "working together" and so forth, a message based on the parts of the body of Christ.  Anyway, sure enough, the Braves won this week, and it was not because of any one team member by themselves, but because of the efforts of everyone working together.  

We got home and I was tired, this despite the extra hour of sleep.  I was up in the night a few times, and that sort of interrupted things.  The point is, I took a nap.  Maddie was online for a bit, and Mom and Nana were doing yard work.  I got up and brought some tables in for Mom to start her work on costumes and whatnot, and then... I brought up another tree.  I've been fluffing it up, and the lights are all on the tree.  Tomorrow, the tree in the piano room will be all decorated, and that will be two trees down.  Maddie usually gets tree #3, the one in her room, and while that's going on, I'll be working on our massive tree in the living room.  Lots of trees around here - you'd think we were in a forest!

I had a few Christmas records playing while putting out decorations.  Mom has some Christmas pillows on the couch, and we brought up all the Christmas CDs too.  This collection has a lot of new additions from collecting over the year, from thrift shop visits and so on.  I think we're at a point where we have at least a couple hundred different Christmas albums.  There are still a few out there that I'm looking for though!

We watched "The Man Who Invented Christmas" tonight, one of my favorites, followed by "Noelle."  With Nana in the house we have to watch movies, but this time of year it's easier because there's such a selection.  We have an equally impressive collection of Christmas movies too, so many that it's not really expected to actually watch all of them in a single season.  

We read tonight, more about Tia Dalma and a darker side of the Kingdom Keepers stories.  One neat thing about the book we're reading is the fact that readers have contributed sections and paragraphs, so that although the entire thing was helmed by one author, there's a group effort in place.  Maddie is a good writer herself, and it's great to see other future writers like herself have opportunities.

We said our prayers tonight, and I was asleep fairly quickly after that.  It seems later at night now, right?