Old Timey Family Christmas

We were able to use an early Christmas gift this past weekend to take part in a Christmas Celebration of days gone by.

There were beautiful views all around us – only marred by some little kid with pig tails chanting “Ride a horse!”
for several hours… Really, who would tell their child about the horses at, oh, 10:30am when they weren’t going to see them until 2pm?

(insert uncomfortable silence and me looking at the floor here)

We frosted cookies at the Belgian Farmhouse.

Danced to the dulcimer in the Hospital building.

Printed a Christmas message at the Print Shop.

Listened to the choir at the Moravian Church… and then yelled, “more, more?”

And finally rode the horses.

And then the sun set on what was a really great family day.

 

Dear Santa, you’ve lost one.

Say “Santa” to Maggie, you’ll get a half-hearted  “ho, ho”.   Mention Rudolph? Now that’s where it’s at!  You’ll get a shimmy, a dance, a yelp, and a little girl frantic to find her stuffed Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or better yet...

Lalalalalalalalambeau Field!

That’s us in Santa’s locker at Lambeau.  Oh wait, you couldn’t tell?  Hmmm.  Maybe it’s because the lady who took the picture neglected to get the S. Claus name plate and upper part of the locker in the picture.  It’s one of Kole’s biggest pet peeves – people who can’t set up decent photos.  In their defense, he’s awfully particular, but seriously…

They were best friends…for about 20 minutes.

Maggie made a big discovery Sunday morning…

Yes, that’s a caterpillar crawling on the family room carpeting.

A caterpillar… in December… We figure it must have been hibernating on the Christmas tree, and finally warmed up enough to come on down and say hello.

There were shrieks, squeals, and peals of laughter along with well-timed OH NO’s when the caterpillar crawled off his paper and back onto the carpeting.

She watched intently, petted gently, and moved the papers to “dump” her new friend in new locales.

And as I scoured the internet to discover how we might keep this Wooly Bear Caterpillar/future moth alive for the winter, Kole dumped him outside and was met with the fury of the youngest girl in the house.

Fa la la la…

We’re busy decking the halls.  We cut down the tree last weekend.  Thought it’d go well.  There was a little girl in the backseat yelling, “ho ho ho” and “tris tris tree” the whole way there.  Then there was a little girl saying, “car. uppy. car.” as we hunted for the perfect tree.  Then there was the ride into town to get cash because we had forgotten the checkbook and the ride back to the tree farm to pay for and pick up the perfect tree. 



With all that excitement, it took a bit to get lights on and ornaments on. While Kole and I were working on the tree, Maggie was busy climbing up and down the step ladder while simultaneously telling herself, “Maggie, sit down.  Sit down!” 



We did manage to capture her attention for bit – she helped put her ornaments on the tree.