Christmas Blitz (Part I)

As demonstrated by our Thanksgiving week celebrations, the Molloy family knows how to celebrate the heck out of a holiday. And Christmas is certainly no exception. In the past week we went to no fewer than 7 holiday celebrations with family and friends and milked every ounce of Christmas that we possibly could.






Mateo, Max, Alyson, little Ellie, our Elise, Andrea showing off their snowmen cards
The celebrations began when Marty and I volunteered at Ellie's school the Friday before Christmas. They had asked parents to come in and do an activity with the kids related to whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year. We decided to make snowman Christmas cards with the kids - using cotton balls (for snowman's body), white finger paint (for falling snow), star stickers (stars in the sky) and orange triangle cut outs (for a carrot nose) and black box cut outs (for a hat). Marty and I spend the evening before preparing - cutting out carrot noses, hats and drawing circles on the cards. We felt very prepared. And then we executed the project with 10 two year olds. It went....ahem...well? Let's just say there was LOTS of glue, sticky cotton balls fingers, finger paint puddles and cards that were much more like abstract art than snowmen. But the kids seemed to enjoy it and I guess that was the point.

After our activity we stayed for a little Holiday Caroling for all the kids in the day care. Apparently they'd been practicing songs with the kids because Ellie knew the words to lots of songs (Frosty, Jingle Bells, Dreidel Song, Wish you a Merry Christmas, etc) that we'd never sung with her before. She enjoyed singing and dancing and Luke enjoyed watching all the people. We have taken to calling Lucas "The Invisible Man" because he is so good and quiet all the time it's easy to forget that he's even there! During the art activity he slept and then woke up when the two year olds, who were completely obsessed with him, began poking and prodding and hugging him. He didn't cry once, even though Ellie's pal Andrea kept saying "Look at him eyes" and poking his eyeball with her finger. Actually now that I think about it, his eye has not been gooey AT ALL since about this time, so perhaps he just needed a good poke in the eye. Either that or Andrea has magical healing powers. Huh.
Uncle Kevin with Lucas, Abby, Milan and Ellie
Anyway, on Saturday, we headed over to Uncle Kevin's house for a family celebration. Ellie and her cousin Abby ran around and played with family friend Milan (who is 1) while Lucas sat there wide eyed sucking on his hand and taking in all the activity. Watching Milan toddle around and get into stuff made me a little nervous for Lucas entering that stage. I forgot how exhausting it is to chase around a new walker that doesn't understand danger quite yet! Ellie really enjoyed Uncle Kevin's neighborhood because I think pretty much every single house had Christmas lights and/or blow up decorations. For whatever reason, City Folk don't seem to be into the Christmas light thing, because there are very few houses in our neighborhood that have lights. So it was a special treat for Ellie to soak in the suburban Christmas light extravaganza.
Gram and Grandpa with Lucas and Ellie

On Sunday, we headed over to our neighbors house to celebrate the beginning of Hanukkah with Ellie's frienemy Myles, his parents and some of our other neighbors and their kids (Lilly 5, Renny 2). The kids had a great time playing the dreidel game (although much to Jon's dismay, they were not quite old enough to play correctly but they seemed to enjoy playing their way!), eating latkas with applesauce, and singing songs and the adults had a great time sitting back and chatting while the kids played and entertained each other.


Amy snuggling with the kids
On Christmas Eve, we had Marty's family over for an evening of tree decorating, dinner and games. As a surprise for Marty's parents, we flew in Marty's sister Amy from San Diego to celebrate with us. It was the first time Amy has been home for Christmas in 12 years, so it was really fun to have her there. It was also a special treat for our kids - Amy got to meet Lucas for the first time, and of course she got to play non-stop with her buddy Ellie (they bonded this summer at the beach). They loved having her there as much as we did. After Ellie went to bed, Uncle Kevin and Marty began working on assembling the Rose Petal Cottage we got for Ellie for Christmas. It was one of those classic gifts that you struggle with for hours trying to put together on Christmas Eve, get obnoxiously frustrated and curse yourself for buying it (thank you so much Uncle Kevin!! Sorry!). It turned out really cute though and it was well worth it (maybe not for Kevin, but for us) because Ellie loves it and I think it will provide endless hours of entertainment.

I put Lucas down at midnight and Ellie woke up at 12:15 so congested she couldn't breathe. Marty and I slathered Vicks Vapo Rub on her, cleared out her nose with saline and then rocked and soothed her to try to get her to go back to sleep. She finally fell asleep a little after 2am...(to be continued)