Glitter and letters to Santa

Yeah - so the glitter was OUT last night. As we ate a dinner of leftovers, soup and buttery, yummy croissant (Daddy working late, so... easy dinner, BUT have I gushed about Trader Joe's self-rising mini croissants AND chocolate croissants? If not, I should have.... go get them... NOW), we worked on Enzo's Christmas tree, an annual thing in kindergarten. In fact, I remember doing it with Olivia years ago - and, of course, with Enzo last year. We have done beads and glitter in the past - possibly once even some beads and dry cereal. Wow - now I feel like I have to dig those Christmas trees out. I mean, I have saved them. I save all their art stuff, but... now I just gotta see'em (I have a friend who puts all her kids St. Bede artwork out when the season in appropriate, and... I just think that's so great - especially now that they are in middle school, high school and college :-). Anyway, Milo had a gluey, glittery, messy work of art going on - Lil was happy just to watch - and Olivia was upstairs toiling on homework. Same with Enzo - he toiled over math and letters and ate and applied glue and glitter to his tree. A lot of fun - STILL a lot of glitter today.

We also did some letters to Santa just before bedtime - tried to fill them with words of good behavior and love - don't want the focus to be entirely on gifts, of course (though they all told Santa at Saturday's breakfast that Enzo wants a DS gaming system, Milo wants that XBox 360 Kinectimals game and, apparently, Lil wants a kitty - Olivia's list is too long and designer-laden to recount right now ;-).

Like I said, we are in full glitter, lit up, cookie baking, crazed excitement Christmas mode here. Totally nuts. Behavior is marginal - some trouble at bedtime and dinnertime (it's the fighting, yelling and tantruming that I can't stand - the whiny reluctance to do things that comes with the holiday season is easy to deal with in that not picking up toys, not eating dinner, not going to bed can be remedied with a quick "Santa is watching" comment, but.... the other stuff.... well, in their over-stimulated state of being these days, it can reach a fever pitch).

Anyway, my high maintenance brood is off into the snow today - lunches of hummus, salad, peanut butter and holiday gingerbread are packed (hubby actually got homemade chili - a recipe that I must share if I already haven't - will do a food post soon) - boots, jackets and all the gloves and hats are unpacked from bins in the basement and taking up room in our front hall ..... all good - all snow - all happy. This morning, as flakes fell, tree lights glittered and the sounds of a salt truck woke the little ones, I dispensed breakfasts of chocolate croissants (Olivia), warm waffles and syrup (Enzo), yogurt and granola (Milo), and cheddar cheese, green apples and bread (Lil), thinking.... you know -they may be high maintenance at times, but.... isn't this what I signed up for - really? So... happy in this house this morning. Happy and warm. Stay safe out there, everyone - starting to get icy.