We did hand craft a lot of the Christmas gifts for neighbors and teachers. Sunshine made her teachers reindeer thumbprint ornaments. Since Monster's teacher this year is the aide from last year, he had already made her a reindeer thumbprint ornament. So, for her and the teacher on maternity leave, he made snowman fingerprint votive holders. To go along with those, we made essential oil hand sanitizer, hand scrub, and room spray. Monster had no interest in helping there, so Sunshine helped make all that. For our awesome babysitter, we made the reindeer ornament but with both kids thumbprints. Because we have plenty of beer bottle tops, I made bottle cap snowmen ornaments. They turned out quite cute. I've posted before how I can't stand party favors and how I'm constantly on the search for things that are not candy or just plain junk. Before Thanksgiving this year, I found some foam bookmarks and foam stickers to decorate them. I had also seen an idea on Pinterest for Christmas card display that I wanted to make. Funny thing is that a friend of mine made hers first, and I decided I really liked it, so I definitely had to make one. Pretty simple. Found a cute, cheap sign at Target, hot glued some ribbon on the back, and got mini clothes pins from Hobby Lobby. Whole thing cost less than $10. We also did a couple random crafts, some I got pictures of, some I didn't.
Christmas itself was nice and quiet. We celebrated with my parents and uncle who was here from Florida. Sunshine got her Cinderella doll, paper, pencils, stickers and Squinkies (she promised not to eat them) she asked Santa for. Monster got more books than any kid should be able to read in a year, but, since he's Monster, he has most of them read already. He also got some great new spy stuff and Legos. I took about 3 pictures on Christmas. Can't believe I was that absent minded. We did take video though, so I guess that counts for something.
My worry for the polar bears is a bit less. We've had below freezing temps and lots of snow. In fact, the day after Christmas there was a blizzard that dumped about a foot of the white stuff. Since Husband has been home for a week, we've been taking advantage of the snow instead of damning it. When he goes back to work tomorrow, I'll damn it again. But, the kids sure have been having fun!
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Hope that everyone had a great holiday season!