We're Ready for Christmas!

Matthew is officially on Christmas vacation as of yesterday afternoon. He came home with a backpack filled with all the pictures, activities, and exercises he had completed over the past month. One of the activities was a little booklet titled "Rudolph! Rudolph!" It was basically a cute little rhyming book about Rudolph and his famous nose. Each stanza was composed of a simple rhyme with a the name of a color as the last word in each rhyme. The children were meant to read the verse and then, based on the rhyme fill in the blank with what color should be written in the blank to complete the poem! Matthew, my brilliant son, did not quite understand this exercise. He started out strong, but sort of "lost his way" towards the end. Here's what he had:

Rudolph! Rudolph! Santa has his sack,

But you're not ready if your nose is black.

Rudolph! Rudolph! Your way can't be seen,

through the winter weather if your nose is green.

Rudolph! Rudolph! It's time to fly at night,

But you'll be quite a sight if your nose is white.

Rudolph! Rudolph! It's time to go to town,

But Santa's wearing a frown because your nose is white. (NO Matthew!!)

Rudolph! Rudolph! Santa gave a wink.

But what will Santa think if your nose is pink. (A fine recovery!)

Rudolph! Rudolph! The children are in bed.

And, now I KNOW you're ready because your nose is...

PURPLE! 

(Gah! Matthew!!)

We have our tree, the house is decorated, Paul and Matthew are currently working on gingerbread and sugar cookies, and the menu is all planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Getting the tree this year was a bit of a fiasco. Not the actually procuring of the tree itself - that was a breeze. Rather, it was decorating the darn thing once we had it situated in the house. First, we brought the tree home and the kids were so excited that they just wanted to start throwing ornaments on. We had to explain to them that first Paul had to find the lights and then string those on before anything else happened. Well, we discovered that our lights from the previous year were out of commission. Not only that, but we had picked out a bush of a tree that required quite a bit of extra illumination. So, we went off to Sam's club and bought two large packages of lights. Paul spent a lot of time and effort twirling those lights on the tree, one package of lights covering the bottom while the other wrapped around the top. When it came time for the big reveal, we had a bit of a Griswold family moment when they wouldn't light. After fixing that initial problem - flipping a switch - we stood back and immediately noticed that the lights were two different colors. The bottom half of the tree was covered in "soft white" lights while the top half were covered in "icicle white" lights. They looked completely different - more of a yellow versus blue hue. Paul looked at the packages and swore under his breath at the fact that we had unknowingly selected two different colors of lights. He then spent a bit of time taking the lights off the tree, repackaging them, and taking the "icicle white" lights back to the store to exchange them for a package of "soft white" lights to match our other set. 

Paul drove to the store, stood in line for close to an hour before completely confusing the poor customer service representative who feebly attempted to help, before finally returning home. After putting the lights back on the tree and then plugging everything in, it turns out that the new package Paul had brought home was mislabeled and we once again had a string of "icicle white" lights and "soft white" lights on the tree. Paul about had a conniption. 

We decided it was not worth the effort to return the lights again, so we just left it. Of course, by this time it was late at night and our disappointed children had to go to bed without decorating the tree. We finally slowly decorated it over the course of the next two days. A little anti-climatic, but it got done and the tree looks beautiful, mismatched lights and all.

And now here we are, the day before Christmas Eve and we're ready for the birth of Our Lord. The kids could not be more excited. Emma is especially really eating up the magic of Christmas. She is so excited. Tonight, we will finish our baking and then spend the evening driving around gazing at the twinkling Christmas lights while enjoying this balmy 63 degree weather. I've been loving this warm winter weather. Last night, we took a walk at 8pm to look at the decorations in our neighborhood and we all had such a good time because it was an extremely comfortable temperature! I'm enjoying it while it lasts because I'm sure by this time next month, we will be covered in white. But for now, have a very merry green Christmas!