Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Monday, December 22, 2008

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Solstice '08

We've had a lovely Solstice. (Please excuse the picture quality; I found peanut butter on the lens after this batch of pictures.)

The kids and I each drew a name from a hat about a week ago, and we secretly "elfed" that person until Solstice, meaning we snuck around doing sweet things for our person while trying not to get caught. Of course, we also elfed those whose names we didn't actually draw in an attempt to confuse things and keep others guessing. Leo's elf managed to drop 50 cents in his shoes while he was wearing them, without him knowing and someone kept leaving pennies where Sophie could find them all over the laundromat the other day. Marian kept waking up to candy at her place at the table, and I even heard rumors about some kids sneaking into other kids' rooms to do some sneaky cleaning. Today we revealed our identities. :)



This series perfectly illustrates Marian and Leo's relationship at times:

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We've been going on night drives to hunt winter fairy lights, while listening to "Here Comes the Sun", and we've read tons of stories, done a few rituals, made cookies and cornbread, watched holiday movies, and played in the snow. For five nights we each exchanged one gift, and we watched the sunset's glorious colors from the wildlife refuge last night. This morning we opened our stockings in my bed after Marian finally woke up (at almost 11am!), then stood out on the porch and sang happy birthday to the sun. We shared our family gift (a Viewmaster with 10 different 3D reels!), had a late lunch at Subway, visited the animal shelter, and started some crystals growing at home.

We shared a lovely dinner of homemade chili and sun-colored cornbread for dinner, by the light of our table sun made of orange tea lights. We lit them all, sang, blew them out, and then lit them again so we could enjoy them while we ate.

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We went to the movies tonight, and ended our evening with cookies and hot cocoa, after being driven home by a kind stranger who witnessed our discovery of the key inside the locked car. (Oops!) It was fun and we met some nice people.



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