le Noel des manuels

Although the celebrating is not yet over, we've had overall a most wonderful Christmas. Everything went smoothly, effortlessly and quite stress-free. Simplicity was key. Everyone was in good health and in good humor. No more schedules. We eat whenever we're hungry or the food is ready. We sleep in. We go to bed way too late.

Lots of time spent with family and friends. Chatting and laughing. Thrown in there was hubby's birthday. Lots of presents to open. We stretched this out over a few days. Funny thing though is that a lot of what we all received came along with instruction manuals, over a dozen actually, hence why we named this Christmas the "Noel Des manuels"!!! Lots of reading to do.

In between all the conviviality we managed to go skating indoors quite a few times. We decided not to put the twins in skating lessons mostly because we couldn't find a good time for them, Instead we promised ourselves to just take them out as often as we can. Practice, practice. Plus the fact that our outdoor skating rink, double the size from last year, is well underway. And then the snow came! Hooray! Snowmen appeared, hats and all. Today, we even ventured out for some cross-country skiing. It was gorgeous.

We are definitely in holiday mode.

santa came!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

The Jolly Ole Man has been especially generous to us all. Guess we must have all been very good all year long ;)

We are now off to Montreal for a few days of merriment.

Cheers!

our first holiday day

No one had to go to school or go to work today. We all slept in. Made pancakes for breakie. Did some groceries. Kids had their hair cut. Met some friends at the skating rink. Went over to their house afterwards for a fun supper and gift exchange. All 6 kids had a blast. And everyone enjoyed the cookies we made :)

all partied out

Last night was our last adult only festive gettogether. Outfit #1 got worn for the third time. Its always the "getting-ready-to-go-out" part that proves to be the most stressful. Going over instructions with the sitter, making supper and feeding the kids, stopping sibling animosity which always seems to excalate the closer the time comes for me to go and finally finding some time to myself to get dolled up (hubby was still at work and I had to go pick him up). As I'm struggling through these tense moments I can't help but wonder is it really worth it? Should I have just stayed home?

But of course, once I'm actually there with some alcoholic beverage in my hand, I can slowly feel all the tension dissipate and I'm reconnecting with my old self. Especially last night as we were in a room full of my professional colleagues, some of them acquaintances of close to 25 years. Hubby and I worked the room, making a point of talking to all we knew and meeting some new people as well. Networking I guess.

We left hand-in-hand glad to have managed to go out on a "date" and amazed at the number of people we know and met there, a very extensive social circle. Quite heartwarming actually.

nearly there

What a whirlwind of activity around here. My mind can only work in list mode. SO here goes, in absolutely no order:

• wrote and mailed all 60 Christmas cards
• ended up pulling out the fake tree from the basement, just couldn't find the time anywhere to go cut one down as we've been doing over the past years and the weather has been poor for a trek in the woods i.e too muddy
  
• the house and the tree are filled with kid's Christmas crafts (thanks for the idea above Nancy)
  
• the entrance table is starting to fill up with cards received from friends and family from all over
• baked an incredible amount of cookies (thanks nancy again for the inspiration)
• even made some bark, thanks Beachmama! except that I used both dark and white chocolate and made a marbled effect
  
• have relied on the slow cooker more than I ever have
• dragged everyone for their annual flu shots
• visited a friend and her 7 month old twin girls who screamed for the whole 3 hours I was there and I left exhausted and wondering how I ever did it with my own
• winterized the motorcycle and lawnmower
• bought new skates for the kids and went skating at the "marina" (as the little ones call it) a few times. We've opted NOT to put them in skating lessons, just no good time to do it, and we all agreed to bring them once/twice a week to our local arena for the $2 family skate up until we get our backyard rink going
  
• have been meeting with lawyers and accountants for our business incorporation, loads and loads of paperwork to get done before Dec 31st, yikes and new computer software to get accustomed to
  
• drove big sis back and forth over the week-end to a badminton tournament where she acquired THREE trophees, not bad for her first year
• hubby has been working an insane amount of hours and has been pretty much absent around here
• went to our local twin's association Christmas party at midway: it was SO cool to see so many twins and mine certainly felt very special to be part of such a select group
• attended greek school Christmas pageant (over 300 kids). The twins looked awesome in their little outfits (see pic above) and sang so well, definite proud mommy moment
• attended greek dancing recital, so cute
• went to an adults only partee, woo hoo, big sis babysat again along with a friend of hers and we came home to find the twins asleep under the Christmas tree. They had wanted to sleep there so big sis brought up a mattress and some sleeping bags. Too bad I was so tired/drunk to think straigth at 2 am and snap a photo ;)
• finishing the last of the gift wrapping today, hopefully
• going to another adult only party tonight, getting my outfit #3 of the season ready
• preparing platters for kids' school parties

No wonder I'm feeling exhausted. Add to this frenzy an unbalanced diet and lack of regular exercise. Oh well, we are nearly there and then we can just sit back and relax!

a family heirloom

An acquaintance of ours is a painter. You can check out some of her work here. For quite some time I've been toying with an idea for her to paint our home with us and the kids in it. After meeting with her some time back and having her come here to discuss details, it finally arrived. A Christmas present for us all. I hope it is a piece that will remain in our family for generations to come.

season ritual

yes I'm done, for another year

every year I say this year I'm going to cut back, but never seem to be able to. Between the relatives overseas and friends scattered throughout North America, I always end up with 60 cards at least.

many years ago, an elderly lady sent me that poem of Christmas cards and I loved it so much as it rings so true to me that I made copies of it on a nice Christmas stationary and sent it out with all my cards one year. Well , yesterday I received a card from a dear friend and she sent me back my poem and signed "Right back at you"

That's teh Christmas spirit!

field trip

Do you remember that excitement and anticipation when you knew there was an upcoming school class trip? Well, that feeling was buzzing around here for quite a while. And the BIG day was today. And yes, it was cold. But dressed as we Canadians know how to dress and with the sun shining, fun was had by all. Plus dad and mom and big sis went along too!

They got to ride on a big yellow school bus, which for kids who get driven to school is a pretty big deal.



Lots of activities in store for them, the least of which was a much anticipated visit sith Santa Claus. They all patiently waited their turn to sit next to him and tell them their wishes. Was way cut. Especially this one little girl who wants a butterfly :)

They rode on a horse drawn carriage and sang carols.



Walked over to a 1930's school where the schoolmistress talked about life in schools back tehn and we all got to do a craft. A Christmas decoration of course.




Decorated some cookies. And ate them too!


Drank hot chocolate around a burning fire and did a few outdoor games.

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The look of joy on these kids was truly absolutely priceless and put us all, kids and adults, in teh Christmas spirit.

busy busy time of year

Along with all the fun and magic of the season, Christmas certainly adds on to a mom's already busy workload. Apart from the usual conundrum of laundry, meal planning, housework and the like, we have to walk around with a mental list of who will get what for the big day, shopping to fulfill said list and keep track of what's left to get, wrap said presents, pull out decorations from deep in the darkness of the basement, sort through them and and put them up, make Christmas card list and get to it, arrange family gatherings and meals. And then we have kids who come up with: "Mom, our class is doing a gift exchange, can you go get me something?" and "Mom! can you bring something for our potluck lunch at school?" We have to rehearse parts for school plays and skits. We have to make outfits for Christmas pageants. Phew!!!

So look what I spent my day doing. The twins are going to sing "Mon beau sapin" and, well, have to get dressed as a Christmas tree. So I found some round tablecloths, made a whole in the middle to pass their heads through and armed with a glue gun and some dollar store finds, decorated the tree. I think I'll sew on a bit of garland now to finish it off.

christmas is in the air

We have an unwritten rule that we don't put any Christmas decorations up until after big sis' birthday. We kinda broke the rule this year, just by a day though. The weather was good and the twins had been bugging us since their return from Florida.

So out came the lights, detangling cords after cords, checking out which set worked and which doesn't and putting them up on trees that keep getting bigger and bigger and require another trip to the store to purchase more. But when nightfall came and on came the lights, there was magic in the air.