Give thanks and be merry!

At this time of year I get a little homesick for extended family. The words to Home For the Holidays sing through my head. "When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly face...for the holidays you can't beat home sweet home." In spite of being away from family for Thanksgiving we had a wonderful holiday! We had two of our close friends over who were in the same situation (staying in town, no family coming in) and made a great time of it!

We love love these families!

 Hazel and her best little friend. We had a delicious feast! I made a quadruple batch of Aunt Lynn's butterhorn rolls. They were a hit. I think the only thing eaten at the kids' table were butterhorn rolls and a little bit of mashed potatoes. No kidding.
 

Carter discovered in preschool last year (thank you, Miss Carrie!) that pumpkin pie is really good! He's been looking forward to pumpkin pie for a year. He made this cream cheese pumpkin pie, with a bit of coaching from me. That's a cranberry topping. Add cream. Delicious!

Olives!

Isn't this lemon meringue pie beautiful! Marianne made it.
 

And she did the apple crumble pie. Grant did the pecan pie. Cassidy made a chocolate mousse pie. It was fun to have a big selection of pie! The kids ate ice cream cones.

Bestest pals.
 

We carry on the beloved tradition of Christmas jammies. But we give them on Thanksgiving weekend so the kids can wear them all Christmas season.

Sometimes I make them, sometimes I buy them. Sometimes they're Christmas themed, sometimes not.

I carefully selected this year's p.j.s. I wanted long pants and sleeves, but a thinner fabric so we don't roast here. I'm happy with the cute ones I found for our family.
 

We started the Christmas season with another very exciting family gift.

A Playmobil nativity! It is the coolest nativity for children, because it's a toy and they can play with it to their hearts, content! It is a very cool nativity with a little baby Jesus that can bend and pose, wise men bearing gifts of tiny gold coins, and plenty of little animals for the stable. (A side note: we love egg nog in our family. We think the wise men actually took gold, egg nog, and myrrh to Jesus.)

We had fun building the stable and setting it all up. We love it.

We've had a really good focus on Christ this Christmas. We tell the story of Jesus' birth often. One time during the part about the inn keepers telling Mary and Joseph there was no room because the inn was full, Hazel said, "They could scoot! We would scoot and I would get out the Minnie Mouse blanket for them." It melted my heart to see her compassion for Mary and baby Jesus.

We're into the swing of Christmas celebrations and loving it. I'm dying for Christmas break to arrive. It won't get here fast enough! Until then we'll keep trying to get the kids to bed at a decent hour and up in time for school! Merry Christmas!