Today Is Our Christmas Day

 We did it!

We completed our Christmas School.

We did all of our shopping (I think the checkers at Dollar Tree can now be counted as family friends).

We did all of our cooking.

We did some of our cleaning--

Actually, this is my cue to talk about Nature Angel.  She took it upon herself to work with the younger kids on decluttering their bedrooms!

Seriously, she volunteered hours and hours of patient guidance for their decision-making.  

And two of the three kid bedrooms are tidy and organized!

She wanted to help Brother and Beowulf before Christmas, too, but she didn't realize how long each project would take.

She's promised to help them in this last week of December.

She and Little Princess also put a lot of hours into decluttering their own room.  

The whole house feels lighter for her work.

We do our usual 3 tidy-up sessions in the house each day, but I've also been throwing in an occasional spontaneous "5-minute clean up."  I set a timer, and we do however much we can before the timer goes off.

It's helped a lot with the extra kitchen mess of so much holiday baking.

In schoolish matters, we finished reading L Frank Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.  It was interesting, and I'm glad we read it, but it lacks the charm of the other version we've read.  I did like the part at the end in which it was explained how parents are Santa's "deputies" and are often asked to actually put the toys in the stockings to help speed Santa on his way.

Rather than start another novel/novella just 4 days before Christmas, I raided our stash of Christmas picture books--the ones that I usually wrap for a storybook Advent--and read 2 or 3 of those each day.  The kids cried happily over Christmas Tapestry, cheered for The Grinch and The Polar Express, and generally were comforted by several familiar stories.

We did just start a historical fiction novel by Maud Hart Lovelace called Early Candlelight.  It's been a tough start--kind of slow and with challenging vocabulary--but I suspect we're going to get to like it as we make friends with the characters. 

 It's happened to us before!

Our final week of Christmas School went reasonably smoothly.

Australia

I learned to love Mem Fox when I was in college.  Her books are always on my favorites list.  This one is as sweet as can be.

Mister Man laughed and laughed at this one!

This one was endearing and educational.

I made a bunch of kinetic sand, and some of the kids made "snowmen" with the sand the way Australian families often do at the beach.

Sugar Bear and The Munchkin loved the kinetic sand all week, though!

Canada

The recommended activities included an ugly sweater contest and going ice skating.  Neither of these was in our budget or within my coping ability, so we just read and talked about Canada.

Norway

For the activity, we made pretty wooden bead ornaments.  

I let Lola thread the leftover beads onto a long strand of yarn, and now we have a lovely bead garland for next year.

Spain

For the activity, we made lemon shortbread cookies--mantecados.  The kids did a lot of the work this time!

The United Kingdom

I made a batch of Scottish shortbread and then a double batch of Yorkshire pudding.

It wasn't a good day for cooking with the kids, so I just cooked for them.

Gluten-free Yorkshire puddings are fairly tasteless, but we filled ours with leftover Thanksgiving cranberry sauce (really, just cranberry jam), and they were delicious!  We think they'd make marvelous pot pies and sweet mini pies.

Little Princess and I baked up chocolate chip cookies, brownie bites, peppermint bark, and "cow pies" (giant soft molasses cookies) on Saturday--which was our Christmas Eve.

I wrapped up the 18 books I bought, arranged all of the treats on platters, set out milk and water and cups and napkins, and called the kids together for our bonus country--Finland.  I told them about Jolabokaflod.  I told them what the actual tradition is and how we were adapting it for our American family.  

They were thrilled!

We honestly had 2 hours of (relative) peace as we snacked and read new books!

It was almost (Brother just does not love reading) unanimously voted the favorite international Christmas custom/activity of the whole Christmas School. :)

Temperatures have been 20-30 degrees above normal, and the kids played basketball, rode bikes, skated, took walks, and did who-knows-what-else outside every day.

It's going to get colder starting tomorrow, but not desperately so.  

I am not writing much about the challenges and struggles we had with behaviors this week, but they happened.  I am very grateful that none were call-911 severe.  

I am also very grateful that Beowulf and I had some very productive conversations about managing his behavioral struggles with patience and grace.  I feel that we grew closer and developed the beginnings of a we're-in-this-together bond.

I'm writing this post at the end of our Christmas Day.  We've emptied our stockings and unwrapped our gifts.  There were cries of delight, hugs, thanksgiving, and joy in the thoughtfulness of each family member.  We've eaten far too many treats, but we've also enjoyed the breakfast casseroles that I baked up for the family to turn to for some protein and vegetables.  

Everyone is quiet now . . . building new projects, reading new books, playing new games, sorting new Pokemon cards.

It has been a Merry Christmas for us.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, too!